Now It's Over

On a number of occasions over the past few weeks, the Red Sox appeared to be on the verge of being eliminated from the postseason, not in terms of actual numbers, but in the sense that the hope was gone. But they kept finding ways of hanging in there, and getting us to believe that a comeback rivaling the 2004 ALCS was a possibility.

That was shot all to hell last night. I'm only glad one of my acting jobs kept me from witnessing it.

No clutch hitting, stupid baserunning and yet another subpar performance from a starting pitcher doomed the Red Sox last night.

Josh Beckett continued his season of stealing the Red Sox money as he allowed four runs early to the Blue Jays, and the Sox came up short. Ryan Kalish was picked off first with one out in the ninth and the Sox down by one, and sure enough, Victor Martinez tripled off the wall in left-center. He died on third when Adrian Beltre grounded out to end it.

Beckett and John Lackey are now 5-12 since the All-Star break. (Thanks Jere.) Imagine where the Red Sox might be now if they earned their keep.

Tampa Bay and New York both won. 8 back in the East and 7 1/2 behind in the Wild Card with 14 to go. So now it's time for football season.

And on that subject, Notre Dame lost a real heartbreaker at Michigan State, as a fake field goal in OT was turned into a TD that gave the Spartans a 34-31 win. It was a big day for Dayne Crist, who threw 4 TDs and for 369 yards. Crist hit Michael Floyd for two of them.

I'm glad I missed this one, too.

The road gets even tougher for the 1-2 Irish next week, as they return home for a meeting with 3-0 Stanford.