Concerns for the Red Sox

The Red Sox are off to their worst start at 1-7 since 1945 when they lost a team record 8 straight games, as Johnny Pesky, Ted Williams, and others were serving in WWII. The Red Sox came into the season looking as the favorite according to many with their acquisition of all-star left fielder Carl Crawford and first basemen Carl Crawford. Kevin Youkilis said, "It can't get any worse than this. There's only one way to go. That's up." Red Sox manager Terry Francona said, "The slate's not really clean," Boston manager Terry Francona said. "The record is what it is, but I don't want us to have a hangover. We need to pick it up. We're going to play a good team now. We haven't done a very good job to this point. I don't want us to be trying to win for this week because we can't do that." The Red Sox have several issues that they will need to address.

Francona needs to find a spot where Carl Crawford is comfortable in the lineup. Crawford has had a horrible first 8 games with his new team. Carl has batted .152 (5-33) with 2 runs, no extra base hits, and has 1 RBI. Crawford's batting average is the 10th worst in the AL and no other player in the top 10 is being paid over 20 million dollars like Crawford. He also has career lows thus far in on base percentage at .200 and slugging percentage at .152. Crawford's on base percentage is 9th worst in the AL and his slugging percentage is 3rd worst in the AL. Crawford has batted all over the lineup. He began the season batting 3rd for the first two games, then batted 7th for a game, then 2nd for three games, and now has been batting first for the last two games. Crawford hasn't batted lead off since 2007 when he did it for the first seven games of the year before moving to second in the lineup. Crawford said about batting lead off, "I just thought I (stank) at it, to be honest with you. Lou [Piniella, Crawford's manager at the time] put me second. Maybe I could have gotten better at it, but I just wasn't comfortable. It didn't have anything to do with stats. I just don't think I'm a good lead off hitter." However, when the Red Sox returned for their home opener, Crawford was leading off and Jacoby Ellsbury dropped to 8th and then 9th for the second game of the season against the Yankees. Francona said, “When he’s swinging good, I really want him to be hitting lead off. He hasn’t been swinging terribly good, but a lot of guys haven’t. Saying that, it’s not so much a demotion. I don’t want him to start going up there and be somebody who is taking pitches. I want him to be himself and create some havoc." Wherever Crawford is batting, it will be very important for him to hit well, especially with his ability to cause havoc on the base paths, as he had 47 stolen bases last season and 60 the year before that. 

With most of the attention on Carl Crawford, the rest of the Red Sox struggles from the plate have flown a little bit under the radar. Through six games the Red Sox were batting .181 and were even worse with runners in scoring position, as they were batting just .81 (3-37). Dustin Pedroia is the only starting Red Sox batting over .300 and even he was batting .227 over the Sox first six games. The struggles have been all over the lineup from top to bottom. In the middle of the lineup, the always reliable Kevin Youkilis has no home runs, 2 RBI's, and is batting just .125 (3-24). At the bottom of the lineup, the Red Sox catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia is batting just .182 (4-22) and only has 1 extra base hit. The Sox have the 27th worst batting average in the league at .215 and have scored the 5th fewest runs in the AL. Francona isn't as worried as some other Red Sox supporters saying, "It's a long season. If you treat every game like it's the seventh game of the World Series, I think you'll burn your team out. Some people may think differently. But I think there are times when you have to trust these guys. Sometimes there might not be the best match-ups. You might lose the battle but win the war... A lot of times these numbers don't even come into play, but I feel a responsibility to at least know. I feel like if I ask the players to do their best, I just feel like I have a responsibility to do everything I can. And it helps me relax."

Most people expect the Sox's hitting to come around but the pitching staff is a serious question mark. The Sox have let up the second most runs in the league through their first 8 games with 53. They have the worst ERA in the league at 7.09, have the least quality starts in the league with 1 (they lost that game anyway), are 28th in the league with a 1.56 WHIP, and are 27th in the league in opponents batting average at. 274. To sum it up, the Sox pitching hasn't been too great. John Lackey has looked the worst out of the Sox starting rotation. In two games, he has pitched a total of 8.2 innings, has allowed 17 hits including 3 home runs, and has given up 15 runs. The home run ball has killed the Red Sox pitching. Buchholz has allowed five home runs in two starts, Lester has allowed three in two starts, and the starters have allowed 12 home runs in total. Terry Francona said about the struggles of the rotation, "We're not even two times through. I don't think it's been a very good first time through the rotation, but I don't think we're going to pack it in. We need to try to get better. We all feel that way... We're walking some people and there are a lot of deep counts. All the things that we talk about that we want to do [offensively] is being done to us right now. We're getting a lot of early exits and asking a lot of our bullpen right now, especially early in the season."The bullpen has also struggled for the Red Sox allowing 7 home runs but they have had to pitch a lot of innings with the ineffectiveness of the starters. Out of the Sox first eight games, their starting pitching has only pitched more than 5 innings twice. The Sox rotation is confident that their early season struggles will not continue for much longer. Clay Buchholz said, "Everything’s there. It’s just a matter of throwing pitches in situations when I can throw them. Last year, I threw a lot of off-speed pitches when I was behind in the count and had a lot of success with it. I just haven’t thrown them for strikes, yet. It’s only two starts in and it’s a game of adjustments.”