The Red Sox Struggles

In all of my short years of watching baseball, never has my team shown such little chance of making the playoffs. I know I must sound a bit ridiculous seeing how the first year I started watching the Boston Red Sox was the year they broke the 86 year old curse of the bambino. Many Red Sox fans had to deal with the heartbreak that was caused by the team losing multiple chances to win a World Series. Whether it was game 6 of the 1986 World Series, when the ball famously went through Bill Buckner's legs, or the more recent events of the 2003 ALCS. A series that came down to a game 7 in Yankee stadium with a tremendous pitching matchup of the former Red Sox great Roger Clemens, and Pedro Martinez. The sox led five to two in the 8th inning, but could not hold on, as fan favorite Tim Wakefield gave up a walk-off home run to little known Aaron Boone. Most fans had to deal with all of that, while I walked right into the glory days for the sox. 

Despite knowing how lucky I am to have witnessed two World Series wins, and multiple playoff runs, I am still going to complain. 

This team has been struggling mainly, because of their lack of consistent starting pitching. The two leaders of the staff, Jon Lester and Josh Beckett, have been terrible really, and despite a recent okay outing from Jon Lester, the two seem to be getting worse. Now the rest of the starters have not been great either, but their not supposed to be, in fact any strong starts from Aaron Cook or Feliz Doubront are just bonuses if you ask me. The offense has been great for the most part. It has been right up there at the top of the American League in most offensive categories. Despite that there still seems to be something wrong in the lineup. Maybe it was the lack of speed most of the season with both Ellsbury and Crawford missing the first half of the season with injuries. Or maybe its the catching situation. Jarod Saltalamacchia has shown great power in his bat, but the backup Kelly Shoppach has had a better overall record when catching for the Sox. 

There is also the fact that both Adrian Gonzalez and Dustin Pedroia have not been hitting at their all-star standards to this point in the season. Gonzalez has raised his average in the last month, but has yet to show the power that is needed in the middle of the lineup. Perhaps the struggles have to do with management.

Now don't get me wrong I put the blame on the players first, but it is not wrong to explore the problems in team management. Of course new Manager Bobby Valetine has his fair share of critics as far as his managing goes, but that should not even be a part of the conversation, because if you ask me the biggest mistake of all was not re-signing Terry Francona last summer before the infamous September collapse. Communication has been a huge problem for this years Red Sox, and Francona always seemed to be able to communicate well.

Communication might have to be made soon as to which direction the Red Sox are going. Are they going to give up on this season and start looking forward to rebuild, or will they stick with this group and attempt to make a run at one of the two wild card spots. That question may be answered soon enough, as the Sox finish up a four game series with the Twins today. The Twins have the second worst record in the American League, and if the Sox lose today they will have been swept in a four game series at home, and will have really put a dent in their playoff chances.

But as I said at the beginning I really should not be complaining, because even if the Red Sox do not make the playoffs for the third straight year, I still have those two World Series victories to fall back on. That's two more than many past Red Sox fans ever had.