Between 1998 and 2011, a span of 14 years, the Red Sox provided entertainment at the ticket office.
They were at the crossroads of the greatest rivalry in sports history and an 86-year-old curse, which contributed to some of this. And naturally, things got much more dramatic in 2003 and 2004, during what may have been the most theatrical two-year tale in sports history. (Epic barely scratches the surface of what happened those Octobers.)
However, while considering this period from the perspective of a few decades later, something else was also taking place. It should be apparent, but something else was crucial in keeping the region’s fixation with the Sox going long after a rivalry reached its peak. Something that’s worth going over again to emphasize how unique these moments were and how much we’ve missed this basic component ever since.
In other words, the Red Sox lived on the bubble of the playoffs for fifteen years.
The number of wins required to secure the final playoff position for a baseball club is considered the “tension point” of the season, and for the Red Sox, that number essentially defined their performance during this era.
Just four teams—three division winners and one wild card—made it to the postseason in each of the 14 years I’ve described here. This meant that the Red Sox were constantly chasing the last ticket to October in their never-ending chase to catch and defeat the Yankees. As a result, the tension was continuously raised to an absurdly high level throughout the whole era and within particular seasons. The intense desire to defeat the hated Yankees and the fear of dropping just one more spot in the standings and missing out on the postseason always drew fans in.
I’ve made a graphic that compares the Red Sox record with each season’s tension point for more specific information. If the Wild Card was awarded from a different division and their total number of victories was more than what was required to win the division, the AL East title can occasionally be the source of contention. Though it has occasionally occurred in the AL East, this often occurs in the AL Central.)
Here are a few points to note:
First, the Red Sox were the particular source of stress during this run, representing the Wild Card an astounding seven times. They were the final team in the dance in precisely half of those seasons because, once more, there was only one Wild Card throughout this entire span. I cannot emphasize this more!
Furthermore, in three of the seven years that they were not the designated tension point team, their proximity to the stress point was still extremely close. In 2000, 2007, and 2011, I mean one or two games in each direction. This implied that there would be high stakes drama over these seasons.
Lastly, from an opposing viewpoint, we can see that the Red Sox were never closer to the tension point than two seasons (2001 and 2006). And if we really want to go further (which you know I want), the Red Sox were in the postseason in both of those seasons through the month of August. As late as August 6, 2001, the Red Sox held the third-best record in the AL, were 17 games over.500, and were only 2.5 games behind the Yankees for the Wild Card slot. Then, on August 2, 2006, the Red Sox were tied with the Yankees for the division lead, sitting atop the Wild Card standings with a 22-game advantage. Stated differently, they were competitive for more than 100 games and only lost their edge towards the close of those two seasons, regardless of the ultimate outcomes.
This implies that the Red Sox played extremely meaningful baseball far into the summer EVERY SINGLE YEAR for almost fifteen years!
Subsequently, as everyone knows, circumstances shifted.
The Baltimore Orioles take on the Boston Red Sox.
Getty Images has the photo by John McDonnell/The Washington Post.
There was more to the 2011 Red Sox collapse than just that particular team’s startling disintegration. As it happened, it marked the end of the Red Sox’s greatest run of relevance in history.
Terry Francona’s season with the Red Sox was coming to an end. The season marked Theo Epstein’s final year in the front office before he left to join the Cubs. It was Tim Wakefield and Jason Varitek’s final season as well as Jonathan Papelbon’s final season wearing a Red Sox uniform. A true conclusion to an era.
A whole new iteration of the Boston Red Sox is what comes next. One in which their shared accomplishments with the previous version are limited to the quantity of titles they have earned. Beyond those two titles, though, it’s almost unbelievable to think we’re witnessing the same team.
Do you know that the Red Sox have finished in last place more often than any other team in baseball over the past twelve seasons? I brought this up last week when it came up in the conversation about the Fenway boycott. That is totally ridiculous and embarrassing for a team with their resources!
Last place finishes tend to take you quite far away from baseball’s stress point, as anyone with a pulse can surely tell you.
But following the 2011 season, something else quite significant occurred. Something that is completely unrelated to the Red Sox. The addition of a second Wild Card club by MLB meant that the tension point victory total would be dropped in many, but not all, of the seasons.
This is when the Red Sox’s situation really gets serious, giving the impression that their games now have less significance than they formerly had. The Red Sox have not only fallen short of the postseason standard set by MLB six times and failed to meet it, but in many of their successful seasons, they have also finished well above the tension point.
Inexplicably, the Red Sox won the division four times from 2012 to 2023 as opposed to just once from 1998 to 2011, and in at least two of those instances, the team overcame the tension point by such a large margin that the September games became less significant because fans were essentially just waiting for October to begin.
Here is the same table as the one before covering 1998 through 2011, but this time it covers 2012 through 2023, giving you a thorough look at how this era has progressed:
Here, we’re all over the map!
This more recent era of Red Sox baseball has mostly been characterized by their avoidance of the tension point by both over and (more often) undershooting it, if the previous era was characterized by their consistent close proximity to the tension point (possibly better than any team in the history of the sport). What’s maybe even more astounding is that they’ve accomplished this during a time when MLB is increasing the number of Wild Cards, which in most years has moved more teams closer to the tension point win total. Just infrequently, such clubs have been the Red Sox.
Here’s the same table as previously, rearranged according to proximity to the stress point, to help tidy this up. Seasons that are above the point of stress are the best. Seasons at the bottom that are below the tension point are:
(Note: 2020 is being excluded for apparent reasons. In addition to cutting the calendar down to a pitiful 60 games and letting a sickeningly high number of teams qualify for the postseason, MLB also prioritized other events over baseball because the world was in turmoil. It might as well have been a thousand, even though the Red Sox only lost by five games in the end.)
The only three seasons in which the Red Sox were within six games of the tension point are indicated in green. Recall that during the span of 1998–2011, they accomplished this 12 times out of 14 times; the two occasions they failed to do so (in 2001 and 2006) were only due to their total collapse in the final 60 games, which produced a unique brand of vintage Red Sox drama.
To put even more pressure on things, the Red Sox finished within two games of the stress point in 10 out of the 14 seasons from 1998 to 2011. That has only occurred once since then. However, considering that, consider which season that drama occurred in.
Why was that season of 2021 so unique? Why did the noise level at the ballpark increase throughout that postseason run compared to any other time during the buzzsaw tour of the 2018 World Series? And why, in the middle of a run of seasons that the Red Sox have been less relevant than most of us can ever remember, did TV ratings soar so high that fall?
It’s because it’s close to the point of stress! The Red Sox from 1998 to 2011 made a brief comeback in 2021, much like an old acquaintance you haven’t seen in a long time. The greatest baseball drama develops gradually before blowing out, as the 2021 Red Sox served as a reminder. It starts in September, when every game makes players and supporters nervous, and if you survive the mayhem machine, it erupts into October night, spreading as far as your team can handle it.
On the first weekend in September, it might not deliver you a rush of dopamine right away, but if you keep piling intense, significant games on top of one other, the tension will ultimately build to a boiling point.
What the Red Sox really need is this, barring an incredible World Series run. Reminding the community how much fun and addictive baseball can be when you live near to the fire, a remarkably close pass to the stress point. In all of sports, there aren’t many things better than reaching September, seeing the first cold front of the summer break through, and knowing your team has a major baseball game that evening at 7:00 p.m. It takes over your life! All of it is what your thoughts return to throughout the day. And most of the time, that sensation has been taken away from us recently. I’d like it returned!
And lastly, isn’t it even more devastating that the Red Sox did nothing of value this offseason given that they are expected to finish roughly six games below the tension point this season? They still have the potential to shock everyone and outplay their opponents, but they blew a fantastic opportunity to invest some resources in this team and bring them up into the fray.
For this reason, Jordan Montgomery’s signing would be extremely beneficial to the 2024 team. A signing like that would almost certainly lessen their proximity to the flashpoint, even if they aren’t on the same level as the elite clubs, and at this time, Red Sox supporters need that more than anything else.