Where did Ben Cherington go wrong?

Despite what you may have been rightfully told about the inadequacies of the American League East, there is only one division in Major League Baseball that the 21-26 Boston Red Sox would find themselves mired in the all-too-familiar position of last place.

Their own.

To be fair to the glass half-full crowd, the 25-22, first-place New York Yankees would also only find themselves in a similar position in their own division.

Granted, the AL East stinks.

When did that become an excuse for the Red Sox’ total incompetence?

Forty-seven games into the 2015 season, this is starting to feel a whole lot like the 2014 season, waiting with a pandering patience for things to turn around with the ultimate gut feeling that what you’ve watched for more than one-quarter of the season is, unfortunately, what you’re going to get.

Again.

As much deserved heat as John Farrell’s managerial approach should garner, frankly, it’s time to look in the direction of the general manager, and wonder if Ben Cherington should eventually take the fall for a third lackluster product in his four years at the forefront of the baseball operations.

Since taking over for Theo Epstein in 2011, Cherington’s Red Sox are an unremarkable 258-275, including two last-place finishes and a World Series title. Want to give him a mulligan — as many are wont to do — for 2012, seeing as his overbearing CEO foolishly thought it fit to force Bobby Valentine on his clock? Fine. Cherington’s teams are 189-182 with a last-place finish, a World Series championship, and one dreadful beginning to a campaign during which it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Red Sox, as constructed, are a puzzle of mismatched pieces destined for failure.

The Red Sox lost, again, Tuesday night in Minnesota, managing only five hits off the immortal Mike Pelfrey. This despite Farrell juggling his lineup, dropping the struggling David Ortiz to the fifth spot in the batting order, a move that appeared to work when Ortiz delivered a second-inning double and scored Boston’s first run on a Mike Napoli single.

It was also Boston’s only run, ruining (yes) another strong outing from Clay Buchholz, who has allowed six earned runs over his last 22 2/3 innings of work (2.43 ERA) with but one win to show for his effort. He’s the ace? Um, maybe. Sure.

On Wednesday afternoon, it was Rick Porcello surrendering six earned runs as the Twins finished off the sweep. The Sox are five games under .500, and struggling to find an answer. Any answer would do at this point.

Meanwhile, Cherington is forced to sit and wait things out as his recent edition of the Red Sox, a team that was supposed to consistently knock the cover off the ball, despite an ancient designated hitter, a rookie leadoff hitter, an unproved shortstop and a Cuban import with skills about as raw as day-old sushi, struggles to discover any sort of identity. His left fielder is a shortstop who looks like a designated hitter in the outfield, and his switch-hitting third baseman is a liability from the right side of the plate (.049 batting average). Cherington spent $183 million on the two last offseason in the desperate hopes that they could help rejuvenate what was one of the worst offenses in baseball last year.

They’ve helped. Boston is only 21st in runs scored this year.

But Ramirez is clearly a square peg in a round hole in left field, as Cherington decided he was willing to eschew any sort of competence in the field in exchange for Ramirez’s bat. But to assume such a tradeoff is to disregard some general intricacies of baseball, like the fact that the Twins’s Eduardo Escobar scored all the way from first base — without a moment of hesitation — when teammate Eduardo Nunez hit a “double” to Ramirez in left. He’s not the first to openly mock Ramirez’s outfield skills this season from the base paths. He won’t be the last.

He is perhaps the prime example of Cherington’s dart-board construction of a team with no real rhyme or reason; a starting lineup anchored by heavy-hitters, and buoyed by either unproven or lesser talent, and a beleaguered pitching staff that has been bailing out the boat, yet is one swell from tipping the whole ship over.

Sandoval? He’s a nice hitter and a solid third baseman, but hardly a player worthy of selling fuzzy panda hats quite yet. Wade Miley has had a nice month and Buchholz has been good. That’s about as much as good as can be said about Cherington’s expensive leap back into relevancy over the winter.

For a guy who’s been an integral part of the Red Sox farm system since his arrival with the franchise in 1999, Cherington hasn’t exactly seen a whole lot of success on the big league level lately from any of the prospects he didn’t trade away during the offseason. Oh, Mookie Betts will be fine, eventually, as will Xander Bogaerts, and Blake Swihart. Or will they go the route of guys like Rubby De la Rosa and Anthony Ranaudo, guys who were previously sold as the future before being unceremoniously dumped during the dormant months? Are Henry Owens, Eduardo Rodriguez and Brian Johnston actually considered solid contributors to the staff, or are they more pump-and-dump pieces to jack up the profile of the system? Is there indeed an actual, long-term plan in place?

It’s difficult to see one without a drive to Pawtucket or Portland these days.

The parent club is in last place. Again. Sure, it’s a bad division, and all is not lost. Indeed.

At what point does that stop becoming a coincidence?