John Farrell, soaked with champagne, savored a clubhouse scene that had once seemed hard to imagine: his Red Sox celebrating a return to the American League playoffs after two winters in exile.

The Sox manager had kicked off the party by addressing his team about the virtues of resilience.

“You defied some of the [expletive] that people said about you,’’ he told his players on Sept. 29, the night they clinched the AL East title in the Bronx. “There are a lot of people here that have a lot to be proud of, guys that were knocked down, came back, busted your [expletive], and got us to this point.’’

The message applied to no one more aptly than Farrell himself, one of the preeminent survivors in contemporary Boston sports lore.

As the Sox pursue their second World Series title of Farrell’s four-year reign, beginning Thursday with Game 1 of a Division Series on the road against the Cleveland Indians, the graying skipper, at 54, has vaulted into late contention for AL Manager of the Year honors after a series of professional and personal trials.

He carries the hopes of Sox fans into the postseason after a life-altering journey in which he survived:

■  cancer.

■  his teams’ consecutive last-place finishes in 2014 and ’15.

■  a new boss with a low tolerance for mediocrity.

■  a broken marriage from his college sweetheart.

■  headlines about his purported romance with a 33-year-old female reporter who covered the team.

■  naysayers calling morning, noon, and night for his head.

Farrell knows there is little mercy in baseball, a fickle game generally controlled by corporate titans who expect returns on their investments, which for the Sox this year amount to about $200 million on player salaries alone.

John W. Henry, the team’s principal owner and also the owner of the Globe, has approved the firings of four managers in 15 years. Farrell understood when he emerged from eight weeks of chemotherapy for Stage 1 Burkitt lymphoma last fall that his days in the clubhouse corner office could be fleeting — that he could be one monumental blunder away from unemployment (see: Grady Little, 2003).

But his close friends and associates say Farrell returned not only with his cancer in remission and a richer appreciation for life but a steelier resolve to confront his challenges, on and off the baseball field.

“It’s a testament to his physical and mental strength that since Day 1 this year he has shown no signs of what he went through last year,’’ said Farrell’s bench coach, Torey Lovullo. “That’s probably the theme of this year: the incredible strength he has shown, inside and out.’’

Bombshell and backlash

Farrell declined to be interviewed for this story, indicating he was wary of questions about his personal life distracting the team.

His contract runs through the 2017 season, and the Sox hold an option to retain him in 2018. But it is widely believed he would have been dumped last winter if not for his cancer ordeal.

Under Farrell in 2014 and ’15, the Sox posted the franchise’s worst two-year record (149-175) in 50 years. His job security, at least as perceived by close watchers of the team, grew even shakier when Lovullo, filling in during Farrell’s chemotherapy regimen, established himself as a potentially worthy successor by guiding the Sox to a 28-20 finish last season after Farrell’s 50-64 start.

The street-corner wisdom was that Farrell was expendable even before he arrived for spring training in February. Then came a bombshell: The Sox had just opened their exhibition schedule when the Globe reported that Jessica Moran, a reporter for Comcast SportsNet who covered the Red Sox, resigned from the network amid questions about the nature of her relationship with Farrell.

Farrell declined to comment on the report, other than to say he was divorcing his wife, Susan, of 30 years. The Farrells have since sold their home in Ohio but remain listed as the owners of a million-dollar condominium in Brighton.

Two of their sons, Jeremy, 29, and Shane, 27, work in the Chicago Cubs organization, while their other child, Luke, 25, is a minor league pitcher with the Kansas City Royals organization.

“As you can understand, this is a tough time for my family,’’ Farrell told the Globe at the time.

The story had the makings of a major distraction, but Farrell kept his personal life out of the public eye, and the media quickly let it go. Still, the notoriety increased the pressure on him to replicate the kind of magical run his Sox made to a World Series title in 2013.

Farrell needed his team to start fast this season. Instead, the Sox sleepwalked into April, losing nine of their first 17 games. A June swoon ensued, dropping the Sox a season-high 5½ games back in their division, and Farrell’s critics were all but fashioning his noose.

“Clueless,’’ they called him. “Overmatched.’’ “The worst in-game manager in baseball.’’

Several media outlets conducted online surveys. The overwhelming consensus: Fire Farrell.

“Do it now, within the next 24 hours,’’ declared Tony Massarotti, a cohost of 98.5 The Sports Hub’s top-rated afternoon show, on June 30.

Farrell felt the backlash. By then, he had resumed his stress-relieving habit of dipping tobacco, which he had quit after his cancer diagnosis.

“It’s impossible not to hear the things that are said or read what is written,’’ said his friend and third base coach Brian Butterfield.

Butterfield credited Farrell with maintaining both his focus and the team’s while respecting the opinions of the team’s passionate fans.

“He has handled everything with flying colors,’’ Butterfield said. “A team that is successful is usually reflective of the leadership and he’s done a fantastic job of making sure everybody is focused on that.’’

But critics continued calling for Farrell’s head, and, Butterfield acknowledged, “There were some bad times.’’

In the executive offices on Yawkey Way, Dave Dombrowski, the team’s president of baseball operations, had little history with Farrell. He had not hired him, and he was aware that Farrell had logged only one winning season in five years as a manager (three with the Sox after two with the Blue Jays).

What’s more, the Sox had significantly upgraded Farrell’s roster by acquiring an elite starting pitcher, David Price, and a first-class closer, Craig Kimbrel, prompting many analysts to predict the Sox would return to the postseason.

Few expected to find the team in a 5½-game hole entering July.

The question arose: Was Farrell really at fault?

His close friend, Mike Hazen, the team’s general manager, said Farrell and others in the organization continue to carry the burden of the franchise’s two consecutive last-place finishes.

“It wears on all of us,’’ Hazen said. “Nobody likes to go through that. We’re not proud of what happened in ’14 and ’15.’’

But Hazen said Farrell’s job was never in jeopardy. To the contrary, he credited him with enabling the team’s turnaround by committing daily to maximizing the club’s performance.

“The last year was tough for everyone involved with the Red Sox and for John personally because of everything he had to go through,’’ Hazen said. “But he fought through it, as we expected he would, and he has come back and done a really good job of maintaining consistency in the clubhouse.’’

Questions of blame

By statistical measures, the team’s sluggish start could be traced to subpar performances by pitchers such as Price, Clay Buchholz, and Joe Kelly. But even they absolved Farrell of blame.

“If he puts a guy in the game who doesn’t do his job, then everybody points fingers at him,’’ Price said. “But it’s not on him. It’s on the player.’’

The Sox brain trust responded to the June swoon by sending Farrell and his players a message: the pitching needed to improve. Brian Bannister, the team’s front-office director of pitching analysis and development, was added to Farrell’s coaching staff, and Drew Pomeranz, a lefthanded starter, was acquired from San Diego, where he was an All-Star.

Still, the vultures circled. Farrell has never been ranked among baseball’s elite managers. His strength is considered creating a consistently productive culture for his players, while holding them privately accountable — a practice that several players cited in part for their success.

“I haven’t been here very long, but I can see that he has our backs and that he tries to put us in the best positions to succeed,’’ said rookie outfielder Andrew Benintendi.

Benintendi feared he might be marginalized when he suffered a knee injury late in August and missed 19 games.

“I didn’t expect him to do it, but he checked with me every day to see how I was doing,’’ Benintendi said. “Those kinds of things make a difference.’’

However, so do a manager’s poor in-game decisions.

Baseball managers are responsible for dozens of strategic moves a day, and Farrell has drawn criticism for many of his decisions.

In mid-September, the day before the Sox went on an 11-game winning streak, former Sox infielder Lou Merloni, now a Boston radio host and part-time Sox color analyst, told his WEEI midday audience that Farrell “does everything well, and then the game starts.’’

Critics have accused him of leaving some starting pitchers in games too long, mismanaging his bullpen, and squandering opportunities to use his best hitters in crucial situations, among other perceived missteps.

“There have been moves John made that I didn’t like and I have been very vocal about them because that’s my job,’’ Merloni said. “But I give him credit because the team has played hard for him and has responded in very big moments.’’

The team’s September surge created enough separation in the division that the Sox clinched the title despite losing five of their last six games and wasting an opportunity to seize home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

On Wednesday, Farrell led the Sox into Cleveland as a winner and a survivor, with a keen memory for the challenges — and the slights — he has endured.

In his first press conference of the Division Series, he recalled the Sox starting the season in Cleveland in April. The opening game had yet to be played, Farrell remembered, when he fielded his first media question, from WBZ-AM reporter Jonny Miller.

“Are you going to get fired?’’ Farrell recalled Miller inquiring.

Six months and 162 games later, with a postseason berth in hand, Farrell gazed upon the assembled media at Progressive Field and said, “Well, here we are.’’

Bob Hohler can be reached at robert.hohler@globe.com. Peter Abraham of the Globe staff contributed to this report.