Jonathan Papelbon had always been some sort of playoff Terminator throughout his career with the Red Sox.

The 29-year-old reliever entered Sunday’s Game 3 with a string of 26 scoreless postseason innings through his first 17 playoff appearances, and openly revealed that the record was “very near and dear” to the outspoken closer. Well, it’s time for the four-time All-Star to start a new record after sitting at the center of an epic Sox bullpen collapse in Sunday afternoon’s Game 3 loss to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

It wasn’t just the Boston closer, obviously, as the Sox fell with hardly a whimper to the Halos in a three-game ALDS sweep, and finished things off with a 7-6 loss before a stunned-silent crowd at Fenway Park.

The loss capped off a second-straight season with no World Series glory, and a rather unceremonious exit from the postseason after taking the Tampa Bay Rays to seven games in the ALCS last season.

Aside from the bullpen struggles on Sunday, the Sox offense managed only 14 hits in the entirety of three games and finished with the third fewest hits in the history of division series play. The problem was much more pronounced on the road where the Sox could do nothing while Jon Lester and Josh Beckett pitched effectively, and was just one facet of a very flawed baseball team ultimately coming to its demise. Jason Bay, David Ortiz and Kevin Youkilis were effectively silenced at the plate by Anaheim's pitching and magnified all of the other problems Boston was suffering throughout the three games.

“I don’t think anything that occurred in this series came completely out of the blue, either. There were times this year when we struggled hitting on the road,” said Sox GM Theo Epstein. “There were times this series when we struggled hitting on the road. There were certain things that went down this series were foreshadowed during the regular season as well.

“That said, I think we were a team capable of winning the World Series. Had we come out and played better, I think we’d still be playing right now.”

But they’re not playing right now. The season is over and it's time to diagnose the flaws that gnawed away at this team and revealed themselves over a 162-game assessment period.

Papelbon coughed up three runs and four hits in his inning of work, and saw his scoreless string officially end at 27 innings pitched, which was the longest stretch of playoff scoreless innings since Papelbon’s idol, Mariano Rivera, recorded 33 1/3 scoreless innings to begin his career.

The Sox closer wasn’t shying away from the tough questions following Sunday’s loss, and said that his outing came down to missed location and a little tough luck. Papelbon might have added that throwing a first-pitch strike to Vlad Guerrero – a notoriously undisciplined free-swinger.

“In postseason play, my job is to, when I get called upon is to get all the outs I’m called on to get,” said Papelbon. “I think things happened quick, more than anything. I wasn’t able to stop the bleeding.

“Your team fights and puts you in that situation, to call upon you, and you let them down. Your team expects you to pull through and preserve that win for you and then you don’t, it’s definitely not a good feeling.”

The Sox closer now has an entire winter to replay the eighth and ninth innings in his head while building toward next season, and use the rare playoff blown save as fuel for his competitive fire. Three times Papelbon had two strikes on a batter with two outs, and he simply couldn’t get out of the situations when the lead was still intact.

“[The Angels} scrapped hard in the late innings, and we weren’t able to put guys away,” said Sox GM Theo Epstein. “We had a lot of guys 0-2, two strikes, and just weren’t able to put guys away, didn’t make a couple plays.”

Papelbon is no longer an indestructible postseason force, and there’s little doubt that realization will make him only stronger and more determined when baseball in Boston begins anew next spring.