Hear me out: the Red Sox are winning. Ok, well, not tonight. But in general, the Red Sox are in first place, they’ve won 10/12 of their last games, and they’re ahead of the ever-obnoxious Yankees.
So why do I not enjoy it the way I usually do? Why has it felt weird since the minute I sat down in my seat on Opening Day? What’s off about this team?
Tonight, Andrew Benintendi homered for the fourth time in four days. MLBaby Rafael Devers had not one, but two home runs. Xander Bogaerts managed to remember how to hit the ball after going hitless in the previous four games. But the pitching (Fister, Hembree, I got bored and stopped keeping track of all the disappointments) was abysmal, giving up seven runs in a short nine innings.
The sad truth is that this team is inconsistent and kind of weird. Maybe it’s that almost everyone is so young, and they don’t have a handle on their talent or the pressure they face in the big leagues. Maybe, and yes, I’ve said this a thousand times, it’s the gaping absence of David Ortiz, who I’m pretty sure we will never be able to replace in any way. Maybe it’s John Farrell, who led a team to victory in 2013 but has been a polarizing figure in recent years. Regardless of the symptoms, the diagnosis is in: something isn’t working here. And the sporadic bursts of shows of talent don’t make up for the fact that we can’t count on this team when we need them to perform.
Sox are losing 7-3 because this team is somehow both amazing and a total disaster
— Gabrielle (@gfstarr1) August 15, 2017
Maybe it’s like 2004, when things began to shift after the Nomar trade and it was just time to break that damn curse. Or, God forbid, this team needs something to rally around, like they did in 2013. But I don’t understand why this can’t be like 2007 – a team with raw talent that just has their shit together and can get the job done. No muss, no fuss.
For all the millions they get paid and how much talent they have, I’m really starting to get sick of games like this.
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