For a third straight year the Red Sox have been eliminated from postseason play. It happened Wednesday with a loss in the team’s final road game of the season.
Boston was essentially out of the race much earlier, of course, in large measure due to a bizarrely long late-season offensive slump that kept them from securing the third Wild Card spot in the American League. The Sox were slugging .500 from mid June to August, but have managed just a .377 SLG since August 9.
Three consecutive seasons matches the club’s longest stretch without a postseason appearance in the last 30 years (also 2010-12 and 2000-02). The next longest such drought was four years from 1991-94. Boston went 10 straight seasons without making the playoffs from 1976 to 1985.
Of course, missing the playoffs was a annual rite in Boston for many decades before that. From 1919 to 1966—a span of 48 years—the Sox reached the postseason just once, in 1946. That year they made to the World Series but lost to the Cardinals, 4 games-to-3.
Red Sox Postseason History
The Red Sox have advanced to the postseason 25 times in 124 American League seasons (1901-2024), including 11 times in the last 22 years.
The Sox have nine World Championships, which is third-most in Major League history after the Yankees 927) and Cardinals (11). Boston’s most recent championships in 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018, are the most of any team this century.