Red Sox postmortem

As it grew clear that the Red Sox would not make the playoffs this year, I could not decide whether to call this season a disappointment because it was supposed to be a transition year and they still won 87 games (with the possibility of reaching 90 with a sweep of the Yankees this weekend).

But Theo Epstein and Jon Lester made it clear that despite the rash of injuries, this season was an unacceptable disappointment:

Pitching and defense, the two expected strengths of this Red Sox team when it began play six months ago, were "not acceptable" this season, according to general manager Theo Epstein.

"We didn't pitch like we wanted to, we didn't play defense like we wanted to, and we allowed our opponents to just score way too much," Epstein said during an appearance on WEEI radio yesterday.

Lester, whose rare poor performance cost him his chance at win No. 20, said missing the mark wasn't as disappointing as not getting to compete in October:

"It's more disappointing not making the playoffs," he said. "Would it have been nice? Yeah, I'm not going to lie to you. But regardless of all that we didn't make the playoffs. We didn't meet our goal this year and that's more disappointing."

But even if this season is considered a disappointment, I'm heartened by two things today: 1) This team did not fracture and held together, as seen in Adrian Beltre and Marco Scutaro's desire to play for Lester:

(Terry Francona) intended to give second baseman Marco Scutaro a night off to rest his aching right shoulder and to use third baseman Adrian Beltre as the designated hitter. Both came to Francona and asked to play their usual positions to try to help Lester.

"After I thought about it, I was really kind of impressed," Francona said. "It made me feel good."

And, 2) That Theo knows the team needs improvement, but not a complete overhaul:

Epstein believes the Sox are "pretty close" to being a championship team again.

"I think this offseason presents us with a lot of challenges, but at the same time it presents us with a lot of opportunities," he said. "You have to sort of be reasonable about everything.

"In a year that ends like this, sometimes there's a tendency to look at all the issues and all the problems, and you think that you're nowhere close to a championship team. Certainly there are elements to a team that are close to championship-caliber.

"We have to completely fix the bullpen. We do have a lot of important position players eligible for free agency. We're going to have to keep those guys or replace them, or some combination thereof. You can't let the way things happened this year cloud your judgment about what you have."

So, forgive me for looking past whether the Phillies should go full bore at the Braves this weekend; I'm waiting for the SoxandPhils 2011 World Series.