Something is off with these Red Sox, but there shouldn’t be
COMMENTARY
Finally. A moment of unbridled exultation in a season decidedly lacking.
Unless it’s related to the seemingly endless tit-for-tat with the Baltimore Orioles, the Red Sox haven’t had a lot of reason to tout emotion thus far this season. Which is why Mookie Betts’ celebratory tour around the bases Thursday afternoon in Milwaukee should probably be considered this year’s defining moment.
In danger of getting swept by the forgettable Brewers — a team that appeared on nobody’s short list of contenders this season — Betts’ three-run, ninth-inning home run rescued the Red Sox — a team widely picked to win the World Series — from what might have developed into a full-blown panic attack during this thus-far tepid springtime of New England.
Instead of coming home with a .500 record to face the Tampa Bay Rays this weekend, the Red Sox are 18-16 through the season’s first 34 games, 4 1/2 games in back of the front-running Orioles in the American League East. A year ago on this date, the Sox were tied for first with Baltimore with a 22-13 record.
Two years ago on this date, they were 15-18, destined for a second-straight last-place finish.
Which of those two editions has this crew reminded you so far?
Despite the otherworldly stature of Chris Sale, the emerging superstardom of Andrew Benintendi, the supersonic adjustment Craig Kimbrel has made to the American League, and the oozing greatness of Betts, the 2017 Red Sox have yet to hit any semblance of a stride. It has been an issue compounded by early-season ineptitude at the plate, a problematic bullpen leading up to Kimbrel, and, perhaps most notably, the absence of any authoritative voice leading the charge.
In the midst of Dustin Pedroia throwing his teammates under the bus during L’Affaire Machado, Hanley Ramirez’s catatonic base-running blunder earlier this month, and a list of costly errors in the field, it’s almost easy to forget that the Red Sox have rebounded offensively (first in the AL in runs scored this month with 60, fifth with 15 home runs) following a period more defined by “Come Back Soon” cards addressed to David Ortiz than it was any true cohesion in the lineup. On the flip side, after watching Eduardo Rodriguez’s extraordinary outing in Milwaukee Thursday, not to mention Sale every fifth day, the Red Sox’ starting staff, which was supposed to be the primary reason for the team’s eventual greatness, is only 11-14 with a 4.42 ERA.
Granted, that’s with the memory of Kyle Kendrick and his 12.96 ERA still intact, but the starting five still hasn’t been the strength we once assumed it would be, even with reigning Cy Young Award winner Rick Porcello coming back into form after an inauspicious first three games of the season.
Third base has been a black hole (looks like I’m out 50 cents on my all-in gamble that Pablo Sandoval would win Comeback Player of the Year), the bullpen is an unreliable gaggle of Joe Kellys (with all due respect to Joe Kelly), and while $217 million pitcher David Price’s return is on the horizon with a rehab start with Pawtucket on Sunday, that lingering fear that this is all going to end in surgery for the No. 2 starter is going to continue to fester through the summer.
Then again, there’s always Henry Owens. Right?
Even with all those issues, John Farrell’s Red Sox should be better than they’ve shown themselves to be. They’ve got the highest team batting average (.277) in the AL, are third in OPS (.767), and have even leapt up the charts in total bases (486), something that seemed dreadfully of course during April. Mitch Moreland has been a pleasant addition, Xander Bogaerts is morphing into a modern-day Wade Boggs (batting .342 with zero home runs), and Ramirez has stretches that can be classified as torrid, followed by streaks of placidity.
They don’t suck. They shouldn’t suck.
But they still do have a lot of maturing to overcome if they want to shed their early-season tag of underachieving.
“I don’t think anyone in here is satisfied,” Farrell said in Milwaukee this week. “Every team has their own challenges in their own right, injuries and otherwise. But we feel like there’s a real capability that we could be better.”
There is. They should.
It’s why Betts’ home run was such a huge lift for this team, saddled with so many ineffective responses prior.
“He’s certainly impacting the baseball,” Farrell said (whatever that means). “He’s come up big in so many situations. But this was probably as big of a swing as he’s had all year for us.”
No “probably” about it.
The Red Sox are going to need a lot more of those moments if they want us to think they’re something different though.
It’s not panic so much as it is uncertainty.
They should be better.
Will they?
