"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." - The Shawshank Redemption
Over the first month of the baseball season, I have received the following text messages from fellow Red Sox fans in response to Boston's uninspiring start:
"I can't do this. I need therapy. Why can't we just run everyone over like the rays? Help."
"This is like a bad joke"
"What was worse for Ortiz: his strikeout or Hermida's double? See ya pal"
"I feel like I did when V-Tek first became an automatic out."
"I'm going to call this season 'The Adventures of Bill Hall'".
Actually, now that I realize it, all of these text messages were from fellow blogger John Wasdin. Nonetheless, these thoughts echo the sentiments of most Red Sox fans: "We're hopeless", "The Rays might win 115 games", "WHY DOES BECKETT SUCK?", etc.
I traveled down to Baltimore for this weekend's series and I know how strange the feeling was among Sox fans to watch them get swept by the worst team in baseball. To all of you, I would offer the following advice: relax. Have a Diet Coke. Make a sandwich. Everything is going to be OK.
The Sox have faced a perfect storm of conditions to start the year that are going to work themselves out over the next month or so. Jon Lester and Josh Beckett have had stunningly bad starts given that they are 2 of the premier starters in the American League. 2/3 of your starting outfield is on the disabled list. David Ortiz still can't hit, Mike Lowell is old, Adrian Beltre is overrated, Youk has had a slow start, Dustin Pedroia thinks he's Mo Vaughn, Victor Martinez looks like the 2007 Jason Varitek at the plate, JD Drew is JD Drew, and voila, the Red Sox are 6.5 games out of first place.
In light of all this bad news, there are at least 3 signs that things are going to get better for the Red Sox, and get better quickly.
1. Jon Lester and Josh Beckett both had outings recently that resembled their normal statistical lines: Lester threw a gem in Toronto, throwing 7 innings of shut out ball, while Beckett gave up 2 earned runs at Baltimore through 7.
It is normal for pitchers, even elite pitchers, to go through stretches of 4-5 games where they miss their spots and American League offenses make them pay for it. When your 2 aces have both of these stretches in April, people overreact. If Beckett went through this stretch in May and Lester went through it right after the All-Star break, few people would have been reacting as they have.
2. The emergence of Clay Buchholz
Clay Buchholz, recently voted "Baseball Player Most Likely to Look Like a
Furby", has survived Theo's vicious attempts to trade him for every one under the sun over the last few years and now begins the year in the starting rotation without the possibility of being replaced, as he has been in the past.
For a young pitcher, sometimes a vote of confidence can go a long way. If you have Matsuzaka, Wakefield, Bowden, Tazawa and others breathing down your neck waiting for a shot to oust you from the rotation, it can be difficult for a young pitcher, even of Buchholz's caliber, to not worry about the possibility of one bad outing sending him back to Pawtucket.
Buchholz has the makeup and pure stuff to be an ace or solid #2 for this team and has succeeded thus far in showing that he can be a horse for this staff for several years. This being said, Clay has still showed that there are aspects of his game that need to improve. He continues to panic with men on base, which affects his control and his game plan. This obviously is somewhat affected by Martinez and Varitek's inability to throw any one out, meaning many walks or singles lead to having men in scoring position in a hurry. Also, Buchholz's K rate is a little low so far, which is a minor sign of concern, but which should correct itself in the near future.
3. Our hitting really isn't this bad.
It's not. I can give you every statistic under the sun to show you, but just take my word for it. The Red Sox are not going to continue leaving so many men on base and striking out in huge situations.
The make up of this team, which has been built around "pitching and defense" according to Epstein, is still comprised of several excellent offensive hitters in Pedroia, Youkilis, and Martinez and will be aided by the return of Ellsbury sometime in the coming weeks. The Sox will not score record-breaking numbers of runs as they have in the past, but with their beefed up pitching staff and improved defense, they won't need to.
You don't need to have irrational hope that this team will turn things around. They will. I promise. No really, I promise.
