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Here we are, three weeks into the baseball season and Boston Red Sox fans, once again, are ready to make judgements about the entire season. And with the Red Sox off to a 5-9 start while division rivals New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays are off to 10-3 and 10-4 starts, respectively, panic has gripped the fanbase.
Like any respectable group of ravenous sports fans, these premature judgments are often baseless and always radical, but this year the whistleblowers might be onto something. Currently every New England media outlet is tackling this “panic” issue, and I really don’t want to talk about it.
Since I don’t know anything about hockey and I gave up on the Boston Celtics months ago, however, I find myself at a loss for alternative contemporary material.
The common argumentative theme in the media has been to degenerate the issue into a completely pointless semantics argument of exactly what level of doubt we should be experiencing about the team thus far.
Well perhaps panic is a bit of a strong word, but I don’t think that a bit of perspiration given the slow start is out of the question, or a bit of trepidation is warranted given the competitive climate of the American League East Division are a couple of the contentions you may hear.
But let’s face it, nobody is panicking about the Red Sox right now, and if anyone is then I would recommend them a therapist, a new hobby and some blood pressure medication.
It doesn’t matter how our doubts about the Red Sox’ less-than-respectable start manifest textually. What does matter is the reality that the team just isn’t that good this year.
I have been saying since Spring Training this team is not as good as any of the Boston playoff-contending teams of the last decade, and it’s showing on the field. Theo Epstein — preaching fiscal conservatism — plugged in mediocre free agents to address the team’s question marks in the lineup, and then contradicted that philosophy by signing John Lackey to a five-year, $82.5 million contract.
Rather than go out and try to compete for a big bat in free agency, which the Sox dearly needed, Epstein took the high road by plugging holes with veteran defensive specialists while neglecting the offense. Unfortunately it appears the high road was a highway to the Red Sox’ first postseason-less year since 2006.
There may have been hope that David Ortiz would finally rebound from the injury-riddled slump he has been in for the greater part of the past two years, or that the slick-fielding Adrian Beltre would revert to his vintage L.A. Dodgers batting form. These hopes have been promptly squashed in the first three weeks of the season.
Ortiz looks as rickety as ever, and Beltre doesn’t have the same bat speed he used to. Intuition tells me Ortiz will never be the same since he stopped taking steroids and, while it has never been proven, the same is probably true of Beltre.
The defense has not been as good as advertised so far, the poor starting pitching will likely come around, but it won’t be vastly improved from over a year ago, and without an offense that can consistently cover up off days on the mound, the 162nd game seems the likely endpoint to Boston’s 2010 campaign.
What is lost in all the bickering over the emotional upheaval we should be feeling over Red Sox mediocrity, however, is a team that never fails to sell out every game and brings in as much revenue as the Red Sox do owe their fans much more than John Lackey and table scraps in free agency.
Bangor Daily News