By Bob Lobel (@boblobel)
Here is my evaluation of the 2015 Boston Red Sox, a quarter of the way through the season: They have been awful.
When you can’t pitch and don’t hit, you could have a problem. Is that problem solvable? Who the hell knows.
Fire Ben and John, our cerebral GM and manager? Don’t think so. I say there's a 4th of July deadline, or at most, the trading deadline at the end of July. If there is any good news that you can get from the bad, it's that the rest of the division sucks too.
We just suck a little more right now.
It looks like there is so much talent out on the field, mostly young and with much skill. Sometimes I sit and ask, "what does management know that we don’t?"
Why do they think Mookie Betts is their best player with a really bad batting average? Not a good leadoff hitter if the job of a leadoff hitter is to get on base. Not too good at that. I'll tell you what he can do is hit the baseball very hard… Other young players just want the wall in left to be their best friend, except the guy that has the most time next too it. Can't play it and just wants to hit bombs over it. Hard to believe this Ramirez is a worse defender that the last one to play left field here.
How is it possible they leave so many runners on in scoring position? How can so many potential RBI guys think that stands for “run back inside?”
Victorino? "Every little thing is going to be all right," that Victorino?
No it's not! Everything is not going to be all right! How can it be when he can't play because his body is breaking down? Mookie has been great in center, but they will move him. Ortiz just seems to be clogging up the machine. When he and Napoli are back to back in the lineup with Mr. Panda, it seems to represent the slowest possible attack that demands an extra base hit just to get any one of them home from third.
So now what? Put all your energy into the Tom Brady fiasco? Ironic that baseball players get suspended for putting stuff on the ball while football players get suspended for taking air out.
Who is on the bench or in the system to lead them out of this mess? Does the answer reside in Cuba somewhere? Is the transition from the Cuban culture to this one more intimidating than we expected?
Global warming?
Absolutely. Global warming is screwing this all up.
Moving on for the foreseeable future is a painful process. If we have been given any other reason to be optimistic, then let it shine through the clouds of doubt. Of course, the immediate answer for fans is to replace the people who put this team on the field (Ben), and who is charged with getting them to play winning baseball (John).
The best we can hope for is to be competitive. The playoffs don’t start tomorrow. Time is on our side. But, and they know it as well as we do, it won't be for long.
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