Pats fans should hate the Manning Brothers, period. It's crazy, but the Pats have lost 5 postseason games in a row to them.
(I'm not a diehard Pats fan, because I'm not a diehard football fan, but I hope for them.)
Personally I think there's also some innate pessimism when you're a baseball fan, more than other major sports, simply because you lose so damn many times. Even the World Series champs rack up about 70 losses along the way. That's a lot of losing when you think about it.
There were only 2 big mistakes I remember by Tito, both involving leaving starters in too long, one he got lucky on, one he didn't.
1) 2004 ALCS Game 5. Let Pedro pitch to Matsui with us losing 4-2 and 2 men on base and Pedro up over 100 pitches. Got lucky.
2) 2008 ALCS Game 2. Let Beckett come out for the 5th inning. Didn't get lucky.
I thought Francona was very good too. But the amount of grief he took on forums like this for some of his in-game moves was substantial. To a lot of people he was 'Coma'.
There's no real way to quantify it. Managers do make in-game decisions that can change the outcome, but you don't know if things would have been different if they had made a different move.
Over the course of the season one of the manager's biggest tasks is utilizing his bullpen properly, especially the way the game is now.
Then there is the true X factor - the clubhouse factor, the motivation of the players.
What an awful start for the rotation. How many times has a starter given us 7 innings? Porcello did it once and I think that's it. He and Wright are the only 2 that have made it through 6 innings each start. Our bullpen will be hamburger if the situation doesn't improve.
For some reason it was a technical disaster-constantly screwing up-and the powers that be finally decided it wasn't worth their while to spend any more effort on it.