BOSTON — In capping their remarkable one-year turnaround Saturday night, winning back New England’s love so soon after they weren’t even on speaking terms, the Red Sox reached their 13th World Series by sending an extra message across this nation of ours: in the most earth-shattering trade in recent baseball history, it’s Red Sox 1, Dodgers 0.
That it will be Red Sox-Cardinals in the 2013 Fall Classic — a rematch of 1946, 1967 and 2004 — further underlines what a franchise-turning moment the Sawx experienced in 2012 when they unloaded three seemingly immovable contracts to the nouveau riche Dodgers. For while the Dodgers fell short to the remarkable Cardinals in the National League Championship Series, the Red Sox finished off the Tigers in Game 6 of the American League semifinals with a 5-2 victory that happened because Shane Victorino launched a seventh-inning grand slam against Detroit reliever Jose Veras.
Victorino personifies the new-look Red Sox, a remake that became possible when the Big Deal went down.
“To me, when it got special was day one of spring training,” said Victorino, who signed a three-year, $39-million contract with the Red Sox last December. “We all came in with the mindset that we’re all going to go out there, give it our best. Take it one at-bat at a time, one pitch at a time, one game at a time. From spring training. And it’s continued.”
You’d ignore those clichés if the Red Sox hadn’t backed them up with action; hadn’t turned 2012’s disastrous last-place, 69-93 showing into the marvelous, 97-65 record of 2013.
And hadn’t carried that winning spirit and effort through two rounds of the playoffs now. Thanks to first-year Red Sox like Victorino, who hit the second postseason grand slam of his career (tying Jim Thome for the all-time lead) to catapult the Red Sox from a 2-1 deficit. Like Jonny Gomes, who started the seventh-inning rally with a double that almost cleared the Green Monster. Like Stephen Drew, who made a key defensive stop on Miguel Cabrera to end the top of the seventh.
It surely wouldn’t have worked out so magically if not for the trade that shook baseball. On Aug. 25, 2012, the Red Sox shipped out expensive malcontents Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, along with utility man Nick Punto, plus $12 million to Los Angeles in return for Ivan De Jesus, James Loney and Allen Webster, with prospects Rubby De La Rosa and Jerry Sands arriving on Oct. 4. While the Red Sox received the majority of the praise for the swap, tearing themselves down with an eye on the future, we nevertheless assumed it would take them some time to climb back. As did they.
“No, I don’t think anyone really did [think] that we could win the pennant this year,” Red Sox president Larry Lucchino said. “Most put us in fourth or fifth place, as I recall. The scrappy underdog mentality was not something we just made up for PR reasons. It was what we felt about the team. We didn’t envision going this far this fast, but it’s a great feeling.”
The trade with the Dodgers, “I think that’s when things started,” Lucchino said. “The decision to reboot. That gave us the capacity to do so. It still required us to find the right players, deploy the money successfully. [General manager] Ben Cherington did a fantastic job. We found a manager [John Farrell] who was perfect for this team and this time.”
The Dodgers surely feel positive about their end of the swap, as Gonzalez and Crawford enjoyed strong rebound seasons. However, the Dodgers still have another $15.75 million coming to Beckett (who missed most of the season with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome), $82.5 million through 2017 to Crawford and $106 million through 2018 to Gonzalez. They aren’t great risks for the latter two guys, who don’t play premium defensive positions.
On the Boston side, pitchers Webster, 23, and De La Rosa, 24, have displayed promise; the others already are former Red Sox. The key for Boston was to free up the $240 million or so for future expenditures, which have paid off quickly.
The Tigers enjoyed another sterling performance from a starting pitcher on Saturday, this time Max Scherzer, but errors both on the bases (Prince Fielder botched a sixth-inning rally) and in the field (Jose Iglesias bobbled a seventh-inning grounder by Jacoby Ellsbury) created too many opportunities for a too-good foe.
The Red Sox are all the way back, right after they seemed down for the count. They’re here because they displayed the guts to execute a trade we can’t see their rivals in The Bronx, too mindful of appearances, considering. Surely there’s a lesson to be learned there.