(Image source: Boston Globe)

BY JIM FLINK

ANCHOR MEGAN MURPHY

Say see ya -- to Tito -- in Beantown. Two days after a historic collapse en route the playoffs -- Red Sox manager Terry Francona’s beans are baked in Boston.

Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal was the first to report the news -- before it became official.

“His departure would come in the wake of the Red Sox blowing a nine-game lead in the American League wild-card race, the biggest ever held by a team in September that failed to make the playoffs.”

Oh -- it’s much bigger than that. The New York Times’ Nate Silver has the stats to explain how astronomically unlikely it was for the Red Sox NOT to make the postseason.

“The Red Sox had just a 0.3 percent chance of failing to make the playoffs on Sept. 3.  The Rays had just a 0.3 percent chance of coming back after trailing 7-0 with two innings to play. The Red Sox had only about a 2 percent chance of losing their game against Baltimore ... The Rays had about a 2 percent chance of winning in the bottom of the ninth … Multiply those four probabilities together, and you get a combined probability of about one chance in 278 million.”

Thursday, on an interview posted on the Boston Globe site, Francona had trouble making the math work.

“As a season progresses, there’s events that make you care about each other.  This club didn’t always happen as much as I wanted it to. ... You don’t need a team that wants to go out to dinner together, but you need a team that wants to protect each other on the field.”

And if that sounds like Francona was throwing his players under the bus -- ESPN’s Gordon Edes suggests, you might not be wrong.

“Well one thing I would say.  The fact that Terry Francona even acknowledged there were issues in the clubhouse, is a radical departure from his normal approach.  Terry has always been a firm believer of keeping things in house. Now, these are the kind of issues that when you’re 82-and-43 as the Red Sox were for four months, you don’t even hear about.”

But Edes notes, it’s also telling that ownership would let Francona go. Yahoo! Sports Blogger ‘Duk notes, Tito took the Red Sox to the mountaintop.

“A tenure that includes the team's first two World Series titles since 1918, five playoff appearances, a record of 744-552 (.574) and, oh yeah, the historic wild card collapse that just cost the team a chance at participating in the postseason.”

ESPN took a poll of fans on who’s to blame for Boston’s blunder.  And only about two percent of fans put the collapse on the manager.  Small consolation.