Filed Under » Boston Red Sox

According to sources in and outside the organization, the Boston Red Sox were very bad at baseball in September, causing the team to miss the playoffs.

"Hitting a baseball, pitching a baseball, catching a baseball, running around the bases — they were bad at all of it. Hence all the losing," said a front office source who asked to remain anonymous. "Wait. I don't need to be anonymous," he added. "I'm not really saying anything that's not painfully obvious, right?"

Data analysis supports those claims. The Red Sox "won" only 7 games in September and "lost" 20 games. They also had fewer "runs" than their opponents in all 20 of the defeats.

"For a while I couldn't exactly put my finger on what was happening," said a team source. "Especially with our pitching. But then I realized that when our pitchers would throw the ball, the other team's hitters would often hit it out into the field away from our fielders. That seemed to cause a problem for the team."

According to some reports, starting pitchers Josh Beckett, John Lackey and Jon Lester were among the worst offenders, routinely throwing pitches that were hit so far that many even went over the fence bordering the far end of the field.

Boston Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein has announced he is leaving the team to take a similar position with the Chicago Cubs, a move he says was due entirely to the fact that for a young, intelligent, cool person like him, Massachusetts has absolutely nothing to offer.

"Let's be honest, there is not one single professional reason for me to leave the Red Sox for the Cubs," the 38 year-old told reporters. "I mean, objectively speaking, the Red Sox are a better team with more money and a deeper farm system. I should be here. But this state is so fucking lame now it's unbearable. Seriously, it as a cultural wasteland."

The Brookline native and Yale graduate added that while it was not too long ago that he was proud to be from the Bay State, those feelings have eroded over the last few years.

As the late-season collapse of the Boston Red Sox moves the team closer and closer to missing the postseason, the finger-pointing has begun in earnest. And Boston general manager Theo Epstein, who failed to significantly upgrade the roster before the trade deadline, is taking the brunt of the blame.

"I'll take all the blame if need be," said Epstein. "But we're still in contention and I still believe this team has enough talent to at least secure a wild card."

Yet the fact remains that the team Epstein built contains only 13 present or former All-Stars — Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, J.D. Drew, Jacoby Ellsbury, Adrian Gonzalez, John Lackey, Jon Lester, David Ortiz, Jonathan Papelbon, Dustin Pedroia, Jason Varitek, Tim Wakefield and Kevin Youkilis — and not a single additional All-Star or MVP candidate was added at the July or August deadline.

"It's easy to look back now and think that I should have acquired Albert Pujols or Felix Hernandez or both of them — and that's probably what we'll do in the offseason — but it's tricky if you have too many future Hall of Famers on a team at once," said Epstein. "People think it's really easy to run a team that just buys all of the best players. But it's not. Imagine what it's like to look a David Ortiz in the face and tell him that he's only a pinch hitter now because we added someone better than him."