…and Reality
The rose-colored glasses started to come off when the Red Sox opened the season with a 2-10 record, but the team seemed to turn it around in the coming months despite season-ending injuries to starting pitchers Clay Buchholz and Daisuke Matsuzaka. By the end of August, Boston had established a 9-game lead in the wild card standings, but they imploded in spectacular fashion in September, losing 20 of their last 27 games to fall out of playoff contention and ten wins short of 100.