With the Red Sox off to a sluggish 2-5 start, their worst since 1996, it leaves fans wondering where this premiere-looking offense is hiding.
While Boston's pitching thus far hasn't been exactly stellar itself, the offense looks even worse. Following a 5-3 win on Opening Day, the Red Sox have dropped five of their last six games leading up to the 2-5 record. Through those six games, the Red Sox have allowed 23 runs across the plate.
It's all downhill from here...
Although the season is still very young, the results so far have the Red Sox looking for a real-life remote so they can fast-forward to June.
Reigning MVP Dustin Pedroia is off to a terrible start, hitting .179/.258/.357, with one home run, one run batted in, and two strikeouts. In 28 at-bats, Pedroia has five hits.
Since he has done just about everything a player can do, I have to wonder if he is simply planning this out, so in the 2010 season Pedroia can come back with revenge to earn the Comeback Player of the Year Award, and then rightfully say: "I have done it all now."
Off to just as slow of a start is the player who should be the offensive catalyst, leadoff hitter Jacoby Ellsbury. Ellsbury has looked mechanically lost at the plate, and his stats look equally bad. On the young season, Ellsbury is hitting .200, with an on-base percentage also sitting at .200. He has also stolen three bases.
Fantasy baseball tip: Bench Ellsbury for now, and if you aren't in need of a base stealer for the moment, I'd suggest replacing him with Travis Snider, Adam Lind, or Nelson Cruz until Jacoby finds his sweet stroke again.
J.D. Drew, the man who has been proclaimed to be a potential 30 homerun hitter when healthy, isn't showing any indication of this at the plate for the first week of the season. Drew currently finds himself hitting .150, with one home run and a pair of RBI.
Jed Lowrie was off to the worst start of them all, hitting .056/.150/.056, with no home runs, zero RBI, and eight strikeouts in 18 at-bats. Literally adding insult to injury (although more like injury to insult in this case), Lowrie now find himself on the 15-day DL with a wrist injury.
Fantasy baseball tip: If you owned Lowrie, and have not already figured out to drop him, drop him right now for Nationals shortstop Christian Guzman. He won't disappoint.
Hopefully that wrist was the root of all his problems at the plate this week.
Not many pitchers have performed up to par for the Red Sox. Jon Lester, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Javier Lopez, Takashi Saito, Justin Masterson, and Hideki Okajima have been particularly disappointing thus far.
Lester's first two starts this year, against Tampa Bay and Oakland, have been very poor. Although Lester didn't pitch particularly bad against Tampa, he didn't do well enough to lead the team to victory. He now finds himself 0-2, with a 9.00 ERA. Lester has also served up 11 earned runs on three home runs in 11 innings of work.
Josh Beckett, the only starting pitcher who has his "A-Game" turned on to start the season, just landed himself a six-game suspension on behalf of Major League Baseball in response to his head-hunting antics against the Angels on Sunday.
Metaphorically, the bullpen thus far compared to the early season has done a 360. Before the season, the bullpen looked like a nuclear bomb ready to go off on their opponents and become the best 'pen in the game.
As of April 14, it looks more like an exploded meth lab, with only three survivors. (The suspense may kill you, but you'll have to wait to find out who survives!)
Okajima and Masterson, albeit with only two innings under their belts, both sport a cool 13.50 ERA. Saito's rocking a 7.71 ERA, and Javier Lopez has a far-from-intimidating 6.00 ERA.
Jesus Walks...North of the border
Yes. This is a play on the song "Jesus Walks" by Kanye West.
Glancing at the standings, one may think that they were printed upside down.
Toronto sits atop the division, followed by Baltimore, then Tampa, and then New York. The Red Sox are the team in the cellar at this point.
Some may think it's nothing short of a miracle that Toronto, the team perennially forgotten about thanks to Boston and New York, is atop the division.
Toronto finds itself in an unprecedented situation. Not only are the Blue Jays forgotten and buried beneath Boston and New York, but now ten year cellar-dwellers Tampa Bay are favored more heavily than Toronto to make the playoffs.
Maybe they're motivated by lack of belief in the team, maybe it's a week long fluke. I'd like to believe the latter for Boston's sake.
Many think that New York or Boston "deserve" to win the East, but thus far the Toronto Blue Jays are stealing the show.
Playing baseball (like a BOSS!)
Believe it or not, the Red Sox do have a few bright spots right now.
Kevin Youkilis, like Chuck Norris, is hitting everything in sight. Youk's hitting .519, with two homers and four RBI.
Jason Bay is doing alright himself, hitting .286, with two home runs and a team-leading six RBI.
Like I mentioned before, the Red Sox bullpen closely resembles the remains of an exploded meth lab. The survivors happen to be Jonathan Papelbon, Ramon Ramirez, and Manny Delcarmen.
Papelbon is currently sporting a 3.86 ERA with two saves, while Ramon Ramirez and Manny Delcarmen have held opponents scoreless through 4.1 and 2.2 innings, respectively.
Hopefully this doesn't become an extended slump for the Red Sox, but in case it does I already have a juicy conspiracy theory cooked up: the Easter Bunny kidnapped the Sox, replacing them all with look-alikes. I know this because the Bunny dropped an egg in my back yard Sunday morning, with an egg saying "HELP -Big Papi."
I really want the Sox to turn it around so I don't have to hit the press with this story.
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