Red Sox Drop 2 of 3 To The Yankees, Head Into The Break 6.5 Games Back
It’s officially the All Star break. For many fans, this time of the year is a break from the regular season to enjoy the All Star Game festivities. For Red Sox fans, it’s a much-needed break from the frustration that has been the 2015 Red Sox season.
In spring training, we didn’t really know what to expect. The Red Sox had compiled a rotation full of question marks, only to have those questions answered in the form of their pitching coach being fired two weeks into the second month of the season. We’ve come a long way since that point, witnessing yet another one of Clay Buchholz’s flashes of greatness, only to see that greatness once again wind up on the disabled list, much like it does every summer. Justin Masterson has been a disaster, Joe Kelly has pitched his way into the PawSox rotation, Wade Miley has been inconsistent for the most part, Eduardo Rodriguez has been a pleasant surprise, and Rick Porcello has been the biggest disappointment since Carl Crawford.
But with all of that being said, thanks to a mediocre division allowing the Red Sox to hang around, a three-week surge while the rest of the division was faltering, we had a glimmer of hope. After winning 13 of 19, we had this past weekend, a three-game series against the first-place New York Yankees. Well, that didn’t go so well. With a chance to get within 2.5 games, the Red Sox dropped two out of three, and now sit 6.5 games back of first place with every team in the division still in front of them. Again, 6.5 games back at the break isn’t the end of the world, but they had a golden opportunity over the weekend, and they blew it.
You can point the blame at just about anyone you want really, but we should all be tired of doing that by now. This guy sucks, that guy sucks. This guy fucked up, that guy fucked up. Instead of wondering who’s to blame for why they’re in the position they’re in, the question we really should be asking is, where do they go from here? Enough of the blame game. How do they fix this? Can they fix this?
The trade deadline is fast approaching, but this team is going to have to prove that they’re even worthy of an upgrade by that point. You don’t add pieces to save a season; you add pieces to supplement a team that has a shot at making a run. What they could do, and what I suspect they will do, is add a starting pitcher that is going to help them not only in 2015, but beyond that. Red Sox starters have had the worst ERA in the American League for just about the entire season. They need help there immediately, especially now that we don’t know when we’re going to see Buchholz again (although I am looking forward to the Brian Johnson era). And the bullpen? Yikes. They need help in just about every bullpen role except for the closer’s spot.
That Yankees series was a measuring stick. That series proved what most of us already knew. As they stand right now, the 2015 Red Sox are not good enough to contend for a World Series. Go ahead and roll your eyes because I just stated the obvious. But despite their overall record and where they sit in the standings, there’s no denying that there is plenty of talent on this team. The only problem is that most of that talent isn’t in the rotation or in the bullpen, and it’s skewing everyone’s perception of how good this team could really be if they actually had some pitching. That is the complete fault of this Red Sox ownership group and general manager Ben Cherington, who failed you this past winter.
But I’m a believer in second chances. If Cherington can add bullpen pieces and cost-controlled starting pitching to sure up this pitching staff by July 31, assuming they’re still somewhat in it, this offense is more than capable of pushing Boston back into contention. There is a reason that fans of opposing teams within the American League East are still scared of a last place team. It’s because, deep down, they know that the Red Sox are a monster trade deadline away from becoming a legitimate threat again, and they also know that the Red Sox have the pieces to make something like that happen. Whether or not that happens, I suppose, is in the hands of the team, and how they perform in the two weeks leading up to the deadline.
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