Friday, April 15, 2011

Excruciating. Again.

I'm at a complete and total loss to explain this. Four hours of torture against Toronto at Fenway. And yet ANOTHER loss.

2-10. Weren't the Red Sox supposed to just show up and head right for the World Series? It's like I expect them to lose every night now.

It's bringing back way too many bad memories of the early 1990s.

Too many players still look totally lost at the plate. (Crawford, Drew, Salty, Ellsbury.) And in the field. Another lousy performance by Clay Buchholz.

I was one who hoped the Sox would sign Russell Martin this past winter. Jarrod Saltalamacchia? I have a feeling he'll be in the pantheon of players Theo Epstein loved from afar (Edgar Renteria, Julio Lugo, Willy Mo Pena) who turned out to be complete busts.

Please start Jed Lowrie more often, Tito. Like every day.

I'm sure we'll see all over the place on Saturday that stat about the 2001 Oakland A's who started out 2-10 and went on to be 102-60 and Wild Card winners that year. And the 1951 New York Giants started out 2-10 and won the NL pennant. But both teams had to have insanely hot stretches to make it to the postseason, especially the Giants, who came from 13 1/2 down in August to catch the Brooklyn Dodgers that year.

And yeah, I know the Red Sox are only five games back in the East and it's just mid-April.

Yes, I want to believe in this team. But they are testing my patience, and that of everyone in Red Sox Nation. (And right now is there a better chance of seeing aliens than a Red Sox victory these days?) I hope those people who feel we'll look back on this awful stretch in October when the Red Sox are in the playoffs and laugh are correct.

I'm just not chuckling right now.

With thanks to my friend and devoted reader Don for the picture.

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