Adrian Gonzalez blames God and ESPN for the Red Sox collapse

From Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe:

 

Gonzalez sat in a chair in front of his locker and insisted that it was all part of God's plan that the Red Sox failed to make the playoffs.

"It's definitely something that didn't plan for. We were wholly confident that we would make the playoffs but it didn't happen," he said. "We didn't do a better job with the lead. I'm a firm believer that God has a plan and it wasn't in his plan for us to move forward."

Asked what he saw from the team this month, Gonzalez stayed on his theme.

"God didn't have it in the cards for us," he said.

On Tuesday, when I asked him about the collapse of the team, Gonzalez blamed the schedule, not the Almighty.

"We play too many night games on getaway days and get into places at 4 in the morning," Gonzalez said. "This has been my toughest season physically because of that. We play a lot of night games on Sunday for television and that those things take a lot out of you."

I told Gonzalez that teams like the Red Sox and Yankees have long had those challenges, it's part of playing for a high-profile team.

"Why does it have to be?" he said. "They can put the Padres on ESPN, too. The schedule really hurt us. Nobody is really reporting that."

 

Also in this article are quotes from Carl Crawford, who Abraham credits with facing the press, answering every question honestly, and basically being a stand-up guy at the end of an awful season for him.