It'll take more than this to wash that game from the memory banks.
“They’re going to start hitting.”
“Just wait ’til Crawford heats up.”
“No way you can keep that line-up down.”
“Curt Leskanic was a gentleman. And what’s more, he knew how to treat a female impersonator.”
Over the past month, I’ve heard these comments. A lot. And after taking in my third Sox game of the season (their record in my presence so far is 0-3, thank you), I’m starting to wonder if we’re not just fooling ourselves.
Maybe this is as good as it gets. Maybe the 2011 Red Sox are just a highly-paid, .500-ish team that does a couple things good (the occasional pitching brilliance, sporadic offensive outbursts) but does nothing particularly well. Like get its shit grouped to the point that it becomes the team it seems to be on paper.
After being picked by everybody and their brother to win the World Series, the Sox went 11-15 in April. One week into May, and they’re 3-3. They are the sole inhabitants of the AL East cellar and only five other teams in all of baseball have worse records. They’ve been under .500 out of the gate and have only two players in the everyday line-up hitting over .300.
On paper, this can’t keep up. On paper, they’re gonna start hitting. On paper, this is a team that’s far too good to keep down.
I’ll never stop rooting, I’ll never stop praying, I’ll never stop pulling out what’s left of my hair when there’s two outs in the bottom of the ninth with the tying run on third and an 0-2 count on Youk.
But after watching these guys through 32 games, I’m not so sure that much-anticipated summer surge is really going to happen.
