2010 red sox roster series#

The Red Sox fired manager Terry Francona, who had led the team to two World Series wins after an 86 year drought. At season's end, reports describing a fractured clubhouse, including the immortal image of Lackey and others eating fried chicken and drinking beer while their teammates were still in games, effectively turned Lackey from overpaid pitcher to season-killing villain. When details about Lackey's personal life began to circulate towards the end of the season, Lackey's attitude both on the field, where he would become visibly upset at fielders who failed to make plays behind him, and with the media made him an easy target of ire from frustrated fans. The former Angels ace put up a 6.41 ERA in 2011, the worst of any Sox starter who had thrown 150 innings or more. The chief culprit was lousy starting pitching, and John Lackey became public enemy number one in Boston. The Best Red Sox Team Ever Assembled, as the hype went, went through a historic September collapse, falling out of the playoff mix on the last day of the season. Then, two days after trading for Gonzalez, they signed Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Carl Crawford to a 7-year, $142m contract just to put an exclamation point on the fact that at least for once Boston, and not the rival New York Yankees, had won the offseason.Īs it turns out the 2011 offseason was the last time the Sox would win for a while. When that team failed to make the postseason, the Sox traded for San Diego Padres first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, giving him a seven-year, $158m extension. The media guide proclaimed Lackey as part of Three Aces along with homegrown left-hander Jon Lester and 2007 ALCS MVP Josh Beckett. In 2010, the Red Sox were perennial championship contenders, swooping in to give Lackey one of the biggest contracts in team history seemingly simply because they could. Where once John Lackey represented the worst of the overpaid, under-performing players on the Red Sox roster, he has become a symbol of how these Red Sox turned their fortunes around right when their home city desperately needed to root for something. What they couldn't have imagined back when they offered him a 5-year $82.5m contract in 2010, was the path it would take to get there.

When Boston Red Sox starting pitcher John Lackey left the mound in the 7th inning with a 6-1 lead in what turned out to be the deciding game of the 2013 World Series, it was exactly what Red Sox ownership had imagined when they first signed him.