The Top 10 Reasons For The Red Sox EPIC September Collapse

In spite of blowing last night’s contest, closer Jonathan Papelbon is not on my list of the Top 10 Reasons the club fell apart in September… this debacle was about more than one game. Pundits across the baseball universe are characterizing the twin September collapses by the Red Sox and Atlanta Braves as the worst choke jobs in the history of Major League Baseball, and some have said they may be the worst collapses in the history of all professional sports. It’s hard to disagree with either assessment… no matter how painful the acknowledgement. What makes it harder to digest is the level of expectation that was built around the 2011 edition of the Red Sox – a team that was purportedly “built to win this year”. Amid all of the buzz that accompanied the team back in spring training, I expressed deep reservations about whether this team would live up to heightened expectations. While Red Sox Nation was largely in the habit of speculating that t...