“I think he has the respect of the clubhouse.”
So there you have it. That is why Dave Dombrowski announced today he is not axing John Farrell. The Red Sox president also said he doesn’t consider in-game managing to be the most important element of leading a baseball team. (Good thing, because if that was the case Farrell would have been canned by July.)
If you want to get on Farrell for pinch-hitting Chris Young for Andrew Benitendi, knock yourself out. But this series was lost when Rick Porcello couldn’t last in Game 1. Then, of course, there's David Price, the $217 million man who continued his playoff ways in Game 2.
To me, though, the main responsibility lies on the top-ranked offense.
For the majority of the season Sox hitters had been front-runners -- able to pound average and below-average pitching, not so good against elite arms -- but they turned it around for a period late in the season. Despite losing their final five of six we assumed that the battered and torn Cleveland pitching staff would be no match for the Boston Bashers. Oops. Got that one wrong.
Dombrowski was wrong about Price. Ben Cherington was wrong for not bringing Andrew Miller back to Boston. The truth is John Farrell’s in-game strategy, while frustrating, is down on the list.
Farrell showed this season that, like most managers, he's good if he has the players. Farrell had the players. It’s just that those players let him -- and you -- down when it counted most.