BASEBALL - ANGELS 7 RED SOX 6

BOSTON Sunday afternoon, a half hour after they'd been swept in the ALDS by the Angels and right out of the playoffs in the most disturbing fashion, wasn't the time to look back. "Right now, it's probably not the easiest. . Ten minutes ago we were fighting for our Baseball lives," said Red Sox manager Terry Francona. "So probably not the easiest time to do that." Now, though? Yeah, now's the time. Now's the time to understand that, for all their talent, this Red Sox team might not have been equipped properly to make a run at another World Series. A series sweep is surely a shocker, especially when Jonathan Papelbon's got a two-run lead and two outs with no one on in the bottom of the ninth, but hey, didn't Papelbon struggle all season? Didn't the offense go into serious funks, not just in the playoffs, but during the regular season? Was there no consistency and continuity from start to finish? Sure, few teams experience that, but those teams don't get very far, and now the Red Sox are one of them. For all the talk by the Sox about how they didn't play well in this series, how they were out-hit and out-pitched in three straight games. This was more than just a fluke. "That sounds like a crutch," said general manager Theo Epstein. "I think we got outplayed in the series. We didn't play our best Baseball and play all that well these last three games. "(The Angels) deserve it. They outplayed us fair and square. You have to be a really good team and play really well in the playoffs. We didn't play well." Yet, Epstein also understands that the roots of these troubles go back through the season. Epstein didn't say it, but the Sox were hurt big time when Daisuke Matsuzaka, who won 18 games last year, was a washout until the final month, when he finally returned from a two-month in-season rehabilitation assignment. He finished with a 4-6 record. Tim Wakefield had the best record in the majors on July 8, with 11 wins. He pitched four more times, going 0-2 through the rest of the season. The bullpen, which had been exceptional for the first half of the season, had a 4.92 ERA in September, third from the bottom of the American League. David Ortiz didn't hit a home run until May 20, and he batted .238. "Just one of those years that a lot of things happened," Ortiz said, "just for you to be alert of what the game is all about. And it's a tough game to play. Things happen." "It didn't come completely out of the blue, either," Epstein said of the playoff performance. "There were times we struggled on the road. There were times we struggled hitting on the road this series. There were times we struggled hitting on the road (during the regular season). Certain things that went down in this series were foreshadowed during the regular season, as well. "I think we were a team capable of winning the World Series and had we come out and played better we still be playing right now." Perhaps it was a continuity problem. The Sox were hamstrung by shortstop problems until mid-August. Would they have blown a game in Seattle if, instead of Nick Green throwing a ball away, Alex Gonzalez had already been in place? Catching was a problem. Had Victor Martinez been in place before the trade deadline, would that have stabilized the position? And when Martinez arrived, it set off a ton of juggling by Francona, who couldn't completely shut out Jason Varitek. Kevin Youkilis was forced to shuttle between first base and third when Mike Lowell was shut down intermittently because of his hip. That's kind of the way it went. People stepped in and stepped up, but what about the continuity? The overriding concern, of course, is that the Sox might be regressing. They won the World Series only two years ago, but last year they received a serious taste of unexpected defeat when they were dumped by the Tama Bay Rays in Game 7. Now this, a feeling reminiscent of the crushing defeat in New York in 2003. Worse, this is completely akin to the 2005 ALDS sweep by the White Sox , and this hurts even more - not only because Boston was in position to get back into this series Sunday, but also because this team was so much more talented, with all its key parts intact for the playoffs. Epstein sure didn't feel that way, though. "No. The way I look at it, we've had two- and three-year runs in the postseason," he said. "We swept the World Series twice and we made the ALCS seventh game twice and were swept in the first round twice. We couldn't have predicted it at any time. "We were prepared to go on a nice long run. As I said a couple of weeks ago and for seven years now, our goal in this organization is to try to win 95 games if we can in the regular season, get into the post-season with as good a team as we possibly can, and play our tails off and try to win a World Series. "We didn't play well in this series and that's a disappointment. We have to live with that." The worst part for Epstein and the Red Sox players will be just living with it. Papelbon said he'd forget it when he left the ballpark. But he also said, "these types of moments stick with you. They seem to sink a little bit deeper. I'm just going to use this as fuel in the off-season to motivate me and come back next year." Good thing, because although he had 38 saves during the regular season, he gave up three times as many walks and faced far more batters, 285, than he had before, a consequence of his frequent struggles. And a blown save in an elimination game will not serve anyone well through the off-season. "It kind of always lingers," Epstein said. "You always find your mind going back to post-seasons past and the last game always. I still think about '03. I still think about 2005. I think about last year and now I think about this. " These are the ones you think about. The times you win series, they stay in your memory banks. So do these. It's part of life, part of reality in Baseball." RED SOX AT 0-2 IN THE PLAYOFFS How the Red Sox have fared after losing the first two games of a playoff series: GAME 3 SERIES 1988 ALCS vs. Athletics Lose 6-10 Lose 0-4 1990 ALCS vs. Athletics Lose 1-4 Lose 0-4 1995 ALDS vs. Indians Lose 2-8 Lose 0-3 1999 ALDS vs. Indians Win 9-3 Win 3-2 1999 ALCS vs. Yankees Win 13-1 Lose 1-4 2003 ALDS vs. Athletics Win 9-3 Win 3-2 2004 ALCS vs. Yankees Lose 8-19 Win 4-3 2005 ALDS vs. White Sox Lose 3-5 Lose 0-3 2009 ALDS vs. Angels Lose 6-7Lose 0-3