Skating On Thin Ice

Is the Red Sox organization, dare I ask, bored with baseball? Did winning two championships mean they felt there was nothing left to strive for? I'm asking these questions because I'm getting an unsettling feeling about this club, watching them get humiliated by the likes of the cellar-dwelling Cleveland Indians. Since they won in 2007, there has been a steady decline in the competitive fire shown by the Red Sox. This year, it has really come to a head and this was even before they suffered an unthinkable amount of injuries. Even as recently as last year, the Sox mopped the floor with the Orioles, Royals, and Indians. This year, they're something like .500 against those teams and it's not because those teams got better.

So are Henry, Werner and Lucchino bored, complacent, resting on the laurels of '04 and '07? Do they get more excited about soccer, hockey, and NASCAR than baseball? Do they think the fans will just buy outlandishly expensive tickets no matter what the product on the field? The team reflects the attitude of the organization and since 2007, the attitude is skating by, cruise control, squeeze into the playoffs via the wild card, even back in if you have to. Tito's managing style also reflects this "why get an A when I can pass with a C-" way of thinking. Yes, they've had injuries, and yes, it's long season, but a team with playoff aspirations should not be struggling so much against the worst teams in the league. Nor should they be 8th in the league in team ERA or put on such a circus in the field on a regular basis. Of the 9 runs scored against the Sox tonight, 7 of them were unearned, i.e. the result of errors. That is unacceptable at the major league level. Let's not even go into the horrendous situational hitting. Perhaps the entire team needs a refresher course in baseball fundamentals. Injuries would make a convenient excuse for why they don't make the playoffs this year, but the mediocre record against teams with worse rosters than even the injury-depleted Sox could be the real reason they're playing golf in October while the Yanks and the Rays are still playing baseball.

Until there's some kind of shakeup within the organization, until someone comes in who can light a fire under this team, we can expect more of the same the rest of this season and in the seasons to come. Having a healthy team is important, but just as important is having a team who makes the most of the opportunities given to them and rises to the challenge of staying in the playoff race.