A Market Correction

Well, that's one way to describe the recent Red Sox nosedive:

This Red Sox slump is simply a market correction by a team that had been overachieving

On Saturday, July 3, the Red Sox had a five-game first-place lead over Tampa Bay when they took the field for a night game in Oakland. They led the Blue Jays by eight games and the Yankees by a whopping 10 games.

Fast-forward five weeks.

In the wake of Sunday’s hideous loss to Toronto, in which they blew a five-run lead and lost for the ninth time in 11 games, the Sox fell to four games behind the Rays in the American League East. Toronto and New York have pulled within one game of Boston in the loss column.

This is what you call a collapse. An implosion. A Manila folder. Blowing a midsummer division lead makes these Sox a bit of a throwback edition. But the recent slump is nothing like the ghoulish stuff these eyes have seen over six-plus decades of Sox watching.

The rest of it is worth reading, complete with a 'chicken and beer' reference, which is obligatory for a 'Red Sox collapse' column .