Nearly three years ago on a rainy November night in Cleveland, it seemed as though the Chicago Cubs were poised to begin a dynasty. But that promise is gone. The Cubs had an optimistic 69 percent playoff probability on Sept. 17, but a four-game sweep at the hands of their archrivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, […]
It’s tough to find a more successful baseball club over the past decade-plus than the Tampa Bay Rays, owners of a 1,035-901 record — fifth-best in MLB — ever since their stunning breakout in 2008. The Rays went to the World Series that season and made the playoffs in three of the five years that […]
If the Boston Red Sox harbored any hopes of returning to the playoffs after last year’s magical World Series run, they knew they’d need to make a very strong push over the regular season’s last couple of months. Boston entered the final week of July running eight games behind in the American League East race, […]
Here they come again: For the fourth time since 2004, the Boston Red Sox will be the American League’s representative in the World Series. This time, it comes after beating the Houston Astros in an ALCS clash of titans, dispatching a club that many (e.g., me) thought might be baseball’s best. But the Red Sox […]
Winning the offseason — signing the marquee free agent and/or making the headline-grabbing trade — does not correlate strongly with actual winning. The San Diego Padres “won” the 2014-15 offseason by adding Craig Kimbrel, James Shields and a host of other players, then went on to lose 88 games the following season. The previous winter, […]