It’s been a brutal week for the Old Towne Team as their west coast road swing turned into something more akin to a worst cast toad fling. While I would agree that my attempt at humor is terrible, it does put me right on par with the Red Sox attempts at playing winning baseball over the past seven games.
Over the last week, Boston lost five times in seven attempts to bad teams. The Mariners and As won three times on walk-offs. Boston’s bullpen lost 3 times, Alfredo Aceves blowing two saves and losing two games. Daisuke Matsuzaka lost twice, the last time in spectacular fashion. It was a 28-pitch, 2.1 inning wretched travesty, even by Dice-K standards. It’s hard to say anything good about the road trip aside from Aaron Cook‘s diamond in the rough gem, a complete game 5-0 two-hitter that was all the more impressive in light of Boston’s play in the other six games.
Runs
Boston was only outscored 17-12 by the Mariners and As but it was the way in which the offense consistently sunk to the level of the opposition in each game save for the 5-0 win that was most appalling and frankly was what put the bullpen in such a consistently precarious position. Boston could scarcely win a close game. They won one game 2-1 in extra innings but lost 1-0 and 3-2 three times during the stretch.
Hits
David Ortiz got the big one and got the monkey off his back quickly by hitting career homer 400 on Wednesday afternoon. Adrian Gonzalez continues to underwhelm. Sure he’s got a nice little hitting streak going. Singles are fine. That’s not why Boston went after him. They got him to spray balls all over the field, especially the Green Monster at home. Without any show of power, Boston simply has no pop in the lineup with the exception of Ortiz. It’s gotten so bad that pitchers aren’t even trying to avoid Gonzo’s power zone because there is none.
Errors
Dustin Pedroia was out of the lineup again with a bum thumb during the losing stretch. Last night it was reported that Pedey will be heading to the 15-day DL. Prediction: Pedroia will eventually have season-ending surgery on the thumb. My money is on the torn adductor muscle becoming worst by Pedey’s insistence on playing. Pedroia’s violent swing makes his injury especially difficult to manage. This is the same injury that sidelined Kevin Youkilis and required surgery two-years ago. Matsuzaka went on the DL for the umpteenth time after his beat down. Will Middlebrooks‘ balky hamstring acted up again and he sat down as well. Finally, there were errors both physical and mental that kept Boston in the hurt box over the past week.
"Now, after a week-long drubbing and a team batting average hovering around the Mendoza line during the losing streak, Boston comes slinking back into town to face the league leading Yankees. Red Sox Nation can’t be feeling good about this. Why? There are number of reasons and the truth is going to hurt."
First, the team simply can’t get or stay healthy. Jacoby Ellsbury and Carl Crawford (meh), still on the DL and working rehab assignments in Pawtucket, are among 11 Red Sox players on the DL. Boston’s 2012 injury bug is the culmination of a three-year pattern that continues to make me wonder about Boston’s training and conditioning regimen. I don’t know the answer. I’m not a doctor, kinesiologist, sports trainer or strength and conditioning coach. Bonafide injuries aside, with all these tools at their disposal it would seem reasonable that at some point over the last three years the Red Sox medical and training staff could have figured out a way to keep more players on the field.
Second, and no one wants to hear it but it’s the truth, for newbie Red Sox fans the insane generational hatred of the Yankees bound to their DNA that fueled the team for decades and culminated in the World Championships of 2004 and 2007 just doesn’t seem to be there anymore. Fair weather, band-wagon jumping fans that loved the taste of an underdog winner have now gone soft and are complacent. The only thing that’s going to re-ignite the fan base is a steady diet of humble pie. At this point in the season, the servings are piling up.
Similarly, many of the players on this Red Sox team don’t personally identify with the sting and passion of what it’s like to be subjugated to a reign of Yankee superiority and their fans who are only too willing to rub the Nation’s collective nose in it by putting the Sox back in their place. I hate to point to Adrian Gonzalez again but he is the poster child that makes my point. He’s is a hired gun who has all the passion of Eeyore. In baseball business parlance, the product on the field simply isn’t measuring up and the fans aren’t pissed enough about it to jolt management or the team into reassessing their spending strategies.
Eeyore said it best, “Oh Bother.”
I’ve got to admit it’s getting better (Better)
A little better all the time (It can’t get no worse)
– Getting Better, The Beatles