Boston Herald and NY Daily News sports covers for October 4, 2012

Our long standing New England nightmare is over. Wait, you mean Bobby Valentine hasn’t been fired as of 9:55 a.m.? Okay then.

One of our long standing New England nightmares is over. The 2012 season has finally come to a close for the Boston Red Sox after the New York Yankees bent them over their knee last night and spanked the crap out of them to clinch the AL East.

The Red Sox as a team hadn’t lost at least 90 games since 1966 when they were 72-90. They topped that mark this season going 69-93.

We can all sit back and make excuses for what happened. The injuries, the trade, the fact that Valentine is an idiot, Ben Cherington didn’t do enough, ownership cares more about Liverpool.

Forgot the excuses, what we should be talking about is what’s going to be done to fix this team to get back into the playoffs.

The trade of Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez freed up a ton of payroll for the Red Sox. But the free agent class, sans Josh Hamilton, isn’t all that special.

The Red Sox need starting pitching, a first baseman, an outfielder or two and some bullpen help. We know they’re going to try and re-sign David Ortiz and Cody Ross.

But even if they do re-sign them, that doesn’t even crack the surface of what needs to be done.

While last year’s offseason was a crazy one for the Red Sox because of what happened, this one is shaping up to be even more crazier. It will defintely be worth following closely.

For more slices of Red Sox goodness, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, CSN New EnglandESPN Boston, NESN, Providence Journal, RedSox.com and WEEI websites.

And if you must check out the enemy news, head over to the ESPN New York, New York Daily News, New York Post, New York Times and The Journal News websites. You can also check out our Bloguin brother, NYY Stadium Insider.

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