BALTIMORE - Oh, for Carl Everett to kick around. It was so easy to blame the incendiary Everett last year for the pool of rancor and fractiousness in which the Red Sox dissolved.

The Everett-free Sox this year struck every bit as much harmony as the Boys Choir of Harlem. But what did they get for all their exquisite chemistry? After a scintillating 40-17 start, the Sox got a colossal collapse that came to an anticlimactic end yesterday in this city of crabcakes and heartbreak when they were officially eliminated from contention in the American League East and faced the same fate in the wild-card race.

While the Yankees were dousing each other with champagne after clinching the division title, the underachieving Sox were left to wonder how they fell short despite fielding seven All-Stars, two potential 20-game winners, a possible batting champion, and one of their best defensive teams in recent history.

''You guys aren't the only ones scratching your heads,'' Nomar Garciaparra said. ''How do you think we feel? We're trying to figure it out, too.''

A single scapegoat was hard to find.

''We just didn't play the baseball we should have played,'' Pedro Martinez said. ''I did expect a little bit more from this team, especially when you had me healthy and Derek Lowe having the year he's having, and a lot of players having very good years. We can't blame the Yankees. We have to blame ourselves.''

But blame who for their glaring inconsistency?

''I don't know,'' Martinez said. ''I know as much as you do. I know I was doing my job and everyone else seems to be making the effort so I don't have anyone to blame.''

The field general of the $108 million team knows there were multiple causes for his club's premature demise, most of which he hopes will be corrected over the winter. ''I'm going to go home and replay the whole season and do a lot of reality-checking,'' manager Grady Little said. ''There are a lot of factors. You can't identify just one.''

Here then are a number of leading factors, not necessarily in order of gravity.

A failure to win the close ones: No team in baseball - not even the Devil Rays or Brewers - has won fewer one-run games than the Sox, who have gone 12-22 in such situations. And no team has won fewer extra-inning games than the Sox, who have posted a 2-5 record. In addition, the Sox have won only four games in their last at-bat, just a year after they staged 12 last-at-bat victories.

The Hermanson effect: The Sox broke spring training with Dustin Hermanson as the No. 2 starter. Hermanson was coming off a 14-13 season with the Cardinals and had averaged nearly 200 innings a year over the four previous seasons. If anyone was going to be the staff workhorse, it was Hermanson - until he severely strained his hamstring in the second game of the season, a rainout at Fenway Park.

Without Hermanson, the Sox survived for a while, thanks to an unexpected boost from Darren Oliver, who won four games by May 6 before he entered a free fall and eventually was released. But Hermanson's lack of production ultimately helped to seal the team's doom, especially with woefully subpar contributions from Frank Castillo (5-15, 5.25) and John Burkett (12-8, 4.69).

The bullpen: The 13 blown saves are bad enough, but the problems ran much deeper for a pen that never recovered from the loss of Rich Garces. ''El Guapo,'' who either lost his effectiveness because of physical liabilities or lost his will to be effective out of anger that the Sox declined to offer him a multiyear contract, went 19-3 with a 3.11 ERA the three previous years as one of the game's premier setup men. But as he went south this year, eventually forcing the Sox to release him, he helped to blow several games, then left the team shorthanded in his absence.

Aggravating matters, Rolando Arrojo brought almost nothing to the table, posting a 5.04 ERA with his 4-3 record. The Sox, to their credit, picked up Alan Embree and Bobby Howry to help Ugueth Urbina, but otherwise the pen was dreadfully thin.

Their inability to beat the best: The Sox were an abominable 5-13 in interleague play, which matched Kansas City's mark for the AL's worst performance against the NL. Every other AL team with a record better than .500 went at least 10-8 against the NL. Even more telling was Boston's 1-11 record against the Braves, Dodgers, and Diamondbacks.

In addition, the Sox mustered only a 27-35 record against teams with records above .500.

The first base mess: Little tried a trio of first basemen, starting Tony Clark in 70 games, Brian Daubach in 48, and Jose Offerman in 36, but they combined to bat .235 with only 12 homers and 72 RBIs, far below the league average of .280 with 26 homers and 95 RBIs. Clark, of course, was the chief culprit, batting only.208 with 3 homers and 28 RBIs. He clubbed more homers in spring training (4) than he did in the regular season. An All-Star last year for the Tigers, Clark also slugged fewer homers this year than Lou Merloni (4).

Second-half dips: No one epitomized the drop in production after the team's fast start better than Johnny Damon. Indeed, Damon's decline may be as directly linked to his team's slump as Ichiro Suzuki's has been for the Mariners'. Damon, who batted .348 with a .402 on-base percentage to help lead the Sox to the phenomenal 40-17 record by June 6, since has batted .242 with a .328 on-base average. He stole 22 bases before the All-Star break, only eight thereafter.

Killer losses: Not much crushed the team more than consecutive fall-from-ahead 9-8 nightmares vs. the Yankees July 20 and 21 in the Bronx. They also blew a 4-0 lead to the Devil Rays two days later in a 5-4 loss in the nightcap of a doubleheader at Fenway.

''We've got a number of players on this team who may have overachieved this year,'' Little said. ''But we also have some areas where we will have to make ourselves better over the winter.''

All in all, Little said of a Sox team that may wind up winning 93 games or more, ''It's not disastrous, but it's not where any of us wanted to be.''

By Bob Hohler from The Boston Globe, September 22, 2002.

This story ran on page C1 of the Boston Globe on 9/22/2002.

Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.