The Day After The Season Ended

October 12th, 2009 | by Darryl Johnston |

It was a dagger into the stomach.

Now we have six months to wait again.

Red Sox fans sat across New England slightly hopefully on Sunday afternoon clinging to a two-run lead heading into the 9th inning against the Angels. If we could pull out the victory in Game 4 and send this series back to Anaheim, there was no way the Sox were losing Game 5.

Instead, we watched the lead vanish as a knot formed in our stomachs. Okay, okay, maybe not the biggest deal, the Sox still have the 9th inning. How about a base hit from Alex Gonzalez and then maybe Jacoby Ellsbury can double him home? Or maybe Ellsbury just laces a single off of Angels closer Brian Fuentes and then we have runners at the corners with no outs. That’s do-able right?

After all, this is the Red Sox at Fenway Park. A Sunday afternoon at Fenway is the mecca. It might as well be church. The Red Sox always win on Sundays at home. Nothing to worry about.

Until we saw Jed Lowrie walk to the plate. Why? Why is Terry Francona doing this?

I guess it was because Gonzalez was 0-6 in his career against Fuentes but JED LOWRIE SUCKS. I used to really like Lowrie but he is just a soft hitter who has shown nothing at the Major League level. Now you are asking him to start a rally off the Angels closer? Meh.

Of course, Lowrie flied out to shallow center and within the time it took to get from his bat into Torii Hunter’s glove, you knew you were watching the formal end to your 2009 Red Sox season.

Ellsbury popped out to the catcher. (Great). Then it all ended with a shallow fly to left field by Dustin Pedroia, and with that, televisions across Red Sox Nation shut off. The screen powered down and denial set in. The only thing remotely worth hanging on to mentally at that point was knowing we were only 25 minutes away from watching the Patriots beat Denver on the road.

Meh. What a bad day for Boston sports.

Believe me, the day after is no better. You don’t want to watch any sports shows to remind you of how much your Sunday sucked. The Red Sox did enough of that all on their own.

Darryl Johnston is the Red Sox correspondent for Fanball.com. He has many years of sports writing under his championship belts. Email him – redsoxdj@gmail.com