There’s no easy fix for Red Sox’ troubles
COMMENTARY
Less than a week ago, your humble correspondent (that’s me) drafted a very complex multi-point plan spelling out what the Red Sox need to do to get this craptastic season straightened out.
Three games from the one-third mark of this relentlessly aggravating season, I’m not ready to abandon that plan yet, especially since one of those items on the need-to-do list has already happened.
The suggestion to call up promising lefthander Eduardo Rodriguez was heeded, and his masterful 7 2/3 innings of shutout ball in his debut Thursday night provided one of the few fulfilling outcomes of the season so far.
Too bad he can’t pitch every day, because his introduction has been the only decent thing that happened in the five days since the column ran. Rodriguez’s gem was the Red Sox’ lone victory on a seven-game road trip that culminated with an embarrassing 4-3 loss to the Rangers Sunday afternoon.
Fifty-one games into the season, the numbers are hideous: 22 wins, 29 losses, minus-48 run-differential (essentially a run per game). Somehow they are still only four games out of first place in the American League East. The way they are playing, it might as well be 40.
Sunday’s mistake-laden defeat felt like the low point. But then, that’s the cruel catch with this slumbering, slumping lump of a team. There have been multiple occasions already this season that you were sure were rock-bottom, only to realize a frustrating ballgame or two later that there were actually black new depths to be trolled.
In the piece last week, my other main (meaning non-facetious) point was the suggestion that we should have patience with the lineup, a collection of accomplished or promising players that eventually would mesh into one of the best offenses in baseball.
If you don’t mind, I would like to amend that one now, to this:
I have no [string of expletives] idea how to fix this lineup. None. I suppose we just have to wait it out, not because of any lingering and perhaps misplaced faith, but because there’s not a hell of a lot they can do to repair it on the fly.
Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval are taking most of the heat right now, and though some of it strikes you as the satisfied sniping of an agenda-addled element of the media who have been waiting for them to slip up, some criticism is justified.
Hanley, who is the junior varsity version of Manny Ramirez, will forever stand as Exhibit A that at least a modicum of skill and dedication is necessary to play left field at Fenway Park. Moving him to first base isn’t the solution, in part because Mike Napoli isn’t moving back to catcher and in part because, as the Ron Washington character tells Star-Lord Hatteberg in Moneyball, learning the position is extremely hard.
The misguided causation/correlation interpretation that Ramirez should DH because he’s snapped out of his slump recently in that role ignores that he hit 10 homers in April before running into the wall in left field. He’s a putrid fielder — how the hell did he play shortstop for so many years without maiming himself? — but his glove has no effect on his bat. He’s hitting now because he’s healthy again.
Sandoval? He had a lousy road trip, sure, and he has as many home runs (5) and two more RBIs (17) than .153-hitting Stephen Drew has for the Yankees. But Sandoval has basically been what he has been for the Giants the last few years: a slightly above-average player with an appealing personality. The only surprise about his first year with the Red Sox is that NESN hasn’t spent more time pitching Panda trinkets to its remaining audience.
I hate to say we’re stuck with them, because Ramirez and Sandoval are accomplished players and they’ll have their winning days here. But they sure do feel like contributors to a lost cause now, and at the beginning of new contracts that they are yet to wholly justify, they’re pretty much untradeable.
That’s the most frustrating element of this ongoing mess — there is no no shakeup, no quick fix, that makes a hell of a lot of sense. There have been sensible tweaks — flipping Dustin Pedroia and Mookie Betts in the order, recalling Rusney Castillo (man, every fly ball is a choose-your-own-adventure chapter with that guy) and the Rodriguez promotion.
Sitting David Ortiz for a few days was smart — there is nothing that would go further toward curing, or at least masking, this lineup’s ills than Papi’s return to 2014 form, when he had a .927 OPS in the second half. But we won’t know for a few more ballgames whether it actually cleared his mind and woke up his bat.
Fire John Farrell? If this keeps up, that may be a consideration, but as someone who played a significant role in winning a pair of World Series here, dumping an intelligent if imperfect manager because of his players’ failings would be shortsighted.
Fire Chili Davis, the hitting coach? Hell, they should give him a helmet and tell him he’s hitting fifth.
I am sticking by this: this lineup will be better. But I say that not with any expectation of collective greatness. The sum of the thus-far mismatched parts is something less than what the name-recognition and pedigree of this lineup would suggest.
The talent remains, but in various stages, and we may need to brace ourselves for some of those worst-case scenarios that are rarely considered when writing out the imaginary lineup card is helping to get you through the winter. Sandoval may be just adequate. Papi may be done. Hanley may be an eternal enigma.
Sure, the talented young players will improve — somehow, Mookie Betts is leading this team in bWAR and RBIs — but it’s impossible to estimate the size of those increments or when they will happen. Xander Bogaerts is prone to streaks. Blake Swihart isn’t ready. Castillo, who ain’t that young anymore as it is, has pulled off a Lee Tinsley imitation so far.
The offense, collectively and virtually to a man, has been the most disappointing part of this team so far. But it’s not the most bewildering. I still have no idea why Rick Porcello and Wade Miley were signed to contract extensions before ever throwing a pitch for the franchise. I never figured that Clay Buchholz would be the least-aggravating veteran in the rotation, but that’s how it’s gone.
At least they won’t lose Monday. The afternoon’s relentless rain spared them the duty.
Who would have figured that on June 1, a washed-out Red Sox game would count as a reprieve compared to the alternative: watching the damned underachievers try to play.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com