your 2007 Red Sox

It's only eight games into the season (4-4) but it's never too early as a fan to start forecasting how your favorite team will do. So far, the Red Sox have been pretty inconsistent as their middling record indicates. They won 2 of 3 at the Royals (who you might not know are still a major league team), lost 2 of 3 to the Rangers (who still don't have pitching) and have most recently split-1 and 1-with an average Mariners team.

It's been famously said that a baseball season is like a marathon, a grind, horse race, etc. With that said, I think at different times in this long season, you can point to possible weaknesses and troublespots that almost certainly will arise at some point. For the Red Sox, the two biggest problems are quite obvious: 1) the bottom of the lineup and 2) the back end of the rotation.

The 2003-2005 Sox teams were all stacked lineups, a big reason why they reached the playoffs all three years. Last year though, the wheels started to fall off as a ton of injuries happened and the Sox could never recover not to mention guys were getting past their prime (Trot Nixon, Jason Varitek I'm looking at you). This past offseason the Sox went out and got Julio Lugo and J.D. Drew. Both moves were met with criticism as Lugo has never played for a winner (other than sitting on the Dodgers bench for the 2nd half of last season) and Drew is only slightly less injury prone than Ken Griffey Jr. So far so good from these two though, Lugo seems to be a capable leadoff man and shortstop and Drew is very talented. Right now the batting order goes: Lugo, Youkilis, Ortiz, Manny, Drew, Lowell, Varitek, Crisp, Pedroia. 1-6 is top-notch, Lowell proved last year that he can still hit. The question lies in the last three. Varitek got hurt last year and was out for a long stretch of the season (coinciding with the Sox completely folding) and it looks like he has completely lost his way at the plate. He swings at everything (and misses) and can't drive anything. But he's still an outstanding defensive catcher that does so much for our pitching staff and Doug Mirabelli is the backup so he's not going anywhere. Coco Crisp is a complete bum. He broke a finger in the beginning of last season and has never really recovered since then. He was supposed to be our leadoff guy last year but he's not suited for it so now he's buried at the 8th spot. He has no paitence at the plate and to compound that, he's just not a good hitter. He's fast but given that he can't get on and the Sox never run, that doesn't matter. Which leaves us with Dustin Pedroia. The young second baseman must have incriminating pictures of someone in the Sox front office because he got called up last season (and did absolutely nothing to impress) and yet the Sox let Mark Loretta (a cheap, reliable, veteran 2B) walk to the Astros. Pedroia is the equivilent of Turtle on Entourage. He has basically been given a golden ticket and he's just happy to be along for the ride on a MLB team. A little harsh? Probably but if you had to watch this guy regularly, you'd wonder how he's gotten here. There doesn't seem to be much to hope for other than the Sox somehow dumping Crisp and Pedroia on some unsuspecting team, pretty unlikely.

As for the back end of the rotation. Schilling has looked terrible and great in his two starts. Beckett good and great and Dice K great and ok. All three of those guys should be fine, all could win anywhere from 12-20 games. Tim Wakefield to a lesser extent and whoever is number 5 (currently Julian Tavarez aka Freddie Kruger) are the guys I would worry about. Wake had a good first start against the Rangers, only giving up two runs but the Sox once again forgot to provide support. Something that they haven't done for Wakefield in years. Tavarez is just the answer while Jon Lester recovers from cancer in the minors or maybe Roger Clemens decides to come pitch for the Sox again. There are very few rotations that can touch this one still you want something more reliable than Tavarez and Wakefield, who can give up 8 home runs on any given start. Bottom line: this is a good team and could be great. The Orioles and Devil Rays are still awful, the Yankees have zero pitching and the Blue Jays are unproven. The AL East is right there for the taking. Other than that, we'll worry about it later.