Whatever lingering hope that the 2015 Boston Red Sox might be able to drag themselves out of the morass that has infected the franchise since raising that grand outlier touting the 2013 World Series title vanished into the jet fumes somewhere between Arlington, Texas and a homecoming of apathy.
This is a not a team worthy of your attention. It’s not one worth your time or your dollars.
We may only be at the dawn of June, but don’t tell me it’s still early. Not with this excusatory band with no justification. The Red Sox have been bad — not underperformed, bad — for eight straight months of play now, and what little placating you may hear from outside of Yawkey Way seemingly disappeared on Sunday, when Boston finished off its 1-6 road trip through Minnesota and Texas with a loss that delivered a blow to even the most optimistic psyches.
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It’s difficult to rank where the Rangers’ 4-3 walk-off win belongs among Red Sox losses this season if only because it’s a kaleidoscope of futility from which to choose. But only hours after beleaguered manager (for today) John Farrell called veteran players David Ortiz, Dustin Pedroia, Mike Napoli, Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez into his office for a closed door meeting, there was Sandoval in the bottom of the ninth, with Koji Uehara trying to protect a one-run lead, botching a ball that helped lead to Josh Hamilton’s heroics. All told, the veteran group went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position on the afternoon — including Ramirez popping up with the insurance run on base in the eighth — with a pair of costly errors.
Maybe Farrell should invite Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Rusney Castillo and Blake Swihart into his office next time. The leadership the rookies and youngsters provide can’t possibly be much worse than the veteran crew purports to display.
But Farrell will continue to have meetings and lean on his veterans until John Henry shows him the front door. General manager Ben Cherington and the baseball operations people will continue to crunch the numbers and have Carmine try and tell them the best way to get out of the dumpster fire that the number geeks have created for themselves. Larry Luchhino and Tom Werner will desperately try to figure out how to make another ratings splash next offseason, Sandoval and Ramirez already approaching the levels of unmitigated disasters, much like Carl Crawford was before them.
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Nothing has gone right for the Red Sox since Jake Peavy bought a duck boat, a factor that rests on Cherington more than anyone, a general manager who has made one wrong move after another, and yet, ultimately, will be the one Henry and company lean on to fix the mess he started in the first place. How’s that sit with you?
Even at 22-29, the Red Sox appear content to stay the course, having faith in its core because of what they’ve shown in the past. But that past was two years ago, folks. The 2013 Red Sox, as much of a mirage as they were, are not these last-place Red Sox, a mix of aging, expensive dead weight supported by a youth movement that the manager has no reasonable idea how to handle. The frothing fan base feels vindicated in its offseason concern of a pitching rotation that was seen as an afterthought, dubious of Cherington’s square-peg, round-hole attempt to jam Ramirez into left field just to get his bat in the lineup. Still, the Red Sox seemingly continue to preach a patience that fans should crumble and toss to the bowels of the Fenway Park that has turned into a mausoleum before Flag Day even gets to arrive, each of the last two years.
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And who’s culpable for all this? Juan Freaking Nieves?
This team is a joke, and it’s not thanks to what we witnessed on this last, disastrous road trip. It’s not the fact that Ramirez is so god-awful in left field that he now has a dismal -0.3 WAR (0.8 oWAR). It’s not the fact that Farrell continues to pencil in a designated hitter who’s offensively cooked because of his legacy. It’s not the fact that Sandoval couldn’t handle the biggest ground ball he’s seen all season, as “nimble’’ as the portly singles-hitter is at third base. It’s not Farrell’s continued excuse-making for every time Joe Kelly, Clay Buchholz or Wade Miley has another, inevitable, disastrous outing. And it’s certainly not the fact that Cherington traded veteran players at last year’s deadline and settled for the baseball equivalent of magic beans in return.
It’s all of those things, and many more, that have helped turn the Red Sox into the laughingstock of the American League.
The 2015 Red Sox are awful, and no matter how vigorously you want to point to the calendar, that’s not going to change without drastic decisions that includes trading the crop of veterans you might be able to unload; Napoli, Pedroia and Oritz, for starters. Junichi Tazawa, Uehara and — if you can get anything of any value for him at the trading deadline — Buchholz.
But why should you trust Cherington to get it right, only a year later?
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Farrell — despite the clamoring of beat writers rushing to save his job — needs to go sooner than later as well. As far back as Toronto, he’s proven he can’t handle the tutoring of young talent, and the Red Sox need a drastic youth movement, without overspending on anything but pitching next offseason, to help right the sunken ship.
Until the Red Sox finally decide to hold players and management accountable, this calamity isn’t going anywhere.
It may only be June, but it’s not early. Not by a stretch.
In reality, this thing has been over since last year, and if the Red Sox don’t make the right decisions to fix it this time, 2016 is going to have a familiar ring to it as well.
Utter hopelessness.
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