Los Angeles Angels catcher Max Stassi chases a pitch in the dirt as Boston Red Sox’s Mookie Betts stands in the batter’s box during a baseball game at Fenway Park, Friday, Aug. 9, 2019, in Boston. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

While trying to decide what I was going to write about in this spot this week, I thought of something my grandmother used to tell me when I was young, many, many years ago. This was a woman who lived to listen to her Red Sox play on the radio in the days when the Sox would get off to a good start only to fade in August.

The phrase most often heard when people talked about the Sox over the winter in those years was, “Wait ‘til next year.” Unfortunately, for 86 years, next year never came. She and her best friend, another old Irish lady, who were known to have a small glass of wine while rooting, loudly, for their favorites, in front of the radio, were always sure in the early season, that this was the year for their boys to go all the way.

Carl Johnson

Like a lot of the Fenway Faithful of their era, they didn’t live to see the glory years of the early 22nd century, when World Series wins and Duck Boat celebrations became common events in Boston.

My grandmother and her friend, never ones to hide their feelings when their Sox had let them down again, often had another small glass to drown their sorrows and usually had some choice words for their favorites.

Never the less, Fanny Keane and her friend, Annie Murphy, despite their open criticism of the Sox, frequently would scold me when I was critical of anything, not just baseball, and remind me that “If you don’t have something nice to say about somebody, don’t say anything at all.”

Being a devoted grandson and reminding myself of those admonishments and in honor of my grandmother, I will not write about the Red Sox this week because, if there was ever a group that I couldn’t think of anything nice to say about, it is them.

I guess I could say that they did put together a one game winning streak after the eight losses in a row before losing to the lowly Kansas City Royals on Tuesday to end that streak.

I can say that the Yankees, Dodgers and Astros are all putting together impressive seasons, the Yankees and Astros after winning more than 100 games last year and the Dodgers after going to the World Series, before losing to the Red Sox. I can say that all but one of the six division winners from last year would have made the postseason this year if the season ended this week and that the team that wouldn’t have made the postseason was the same one that won the World Series last year and, by the way, also won the Series in 2013 but failed to make the postseason in 2014, finishing in last place.

I can also say that the Dodgers will probably play the Astros or the Yankees in the World Series this year. I won’t mention that the only thing keeping that other team from being in last place in the American League East is the fact that the Blue Jays and Orioles are both having horrendously bad years.

Baseball is a complex game filed with surprises and nuances even the most experienced fan does not understand. It has been made more complex by the introduction of spin rates, exit velocity, launch angle, WAR, WHIP and OPS thanks to the computer and the nerds who use it to try to reduce baseball and our whole lives to numbers.

Despite these new additions to the sport, baseball, like most sports, is a simple game. Whether it’s kids playing a pickup game with four on a side, pot-bellied old men playing slow pitch softball with as many as 11 on the field or Major League Baseball, with nine players on the field, (10 in the American League with the DH), tens of thousands in the stands and millions watching on television, it all comes down to one thing.

The team that has scored the most runs when the game is over is the winner and the team with the least runs is the loser. It doesn’t matter if the score was 1-0 and the team with no runs got 15 hits and the only hit the team with one run got was a home run, the team with the most runs wins.

That’s why the Brooklyn Dodgers, (they’ll always be from Brooklyn to those of us who saw them play in Ebbett’s Field), the New York Yankees and the Houston Astros are in first place in their divisions and everybody else is chasing them.
As of Wednesday of this week, the Dodgers had scored 631 runs, 247 more than the 384 they had given up, the Astros had scored 606, 183 more than the 423 they had given up and the Yankees had scored the most in baseball 663, still 147 more than the 486 that their woefully inadequate pitching staff had surrendered.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that those teams are going to do better than an unnamed team that had scored 661 runs, the second most in baseball, but had given up 607, the 22nd worst in baseball, despite the fact that their pitching staff has three former CY Young winners on it.

So, if you are from Boston, take some advice from my grandmother, don’t say anything about their team if you can’t say something good. I guess you could satisfy your need to say something by saying that the Red Sox performance this year has left you speechless and make my Grandmother happy.

Carl Johnson is a noted baseball lecturer and author. His books include the popular series “THE BASEBALL BUFF’S BATHROOM BOOKS” and “THE BEST TEAM EVER?” which chronicles the Red Sox 2018 World Series win.