Early in this season, I blogged briefly about the pitiful state of the Boston Red Sox who are, if you are not local to Boston, the nearest thing we have to royalty since most of the Kennedys have moved onward.  My dire predictions of doom were promptly followed by the Sox winning five games in a row, which shows how the blogging gods punish anyone who offers a clear position on anything– immediate discredit by example.

But alas, the Sox have lost again, often and terribly, with horrible pitching and a bunch of guys who are lionized around here for hitting .250.   Indeed we have a few fill-ins, people promoted from the minors, who over the short haul show some promise, but you cannot easily replace the guy who almost won the MVP voting with a rookie and expect to win ball-games.

Today a friend called to my attention a post by Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe staff.  (Blog posts must be brought to my attention; I write but do not read, a set of habits that bodes ill for my journalistic future, but that is another issue.)  Abraham notes that since last September 1, which comprises the equivalent of more than a third of a whole season, our pitching staff has an ERA of about 6.  During this time, the team has won only 19 of its last 56 games.

If you look today, you see that we are in last place in our division.

What to do?  My thought was, wait for the return of our injured players (we have $78M of talent on the DL, including two outfielders, our third baseman and our closer).  But no team can win by giving up 1.50 WHIP (that is, one and a half walks and hits for each inning).  So we need pitching (pretty clever of me, eh?).

We await the return of Dice-K from Tommy John surgery.  Will that help?  Who knows? Dice-K had a couple of good years and a couple of bad ones; he is stubborn, and also (not that it matters, but…) no fun to watch.  But we cannot expect he will bring iron to the rotation.

Abraham says we ought to trade for good pitching which means trading good position players.  He notes that in 2004, that season of blessed memory, we traded Nomar and shook the team into the World Series.  Let us say that is a good idea; who do you trade?  Assume no one is untouchable.

You have a choice; trade young guys and become the NY Mets of a couple of years ago.  We have a couple of young guys doing great right now.  Sweeney is hitting .360 in 25 games; he actually is not so young, been up in the Show a few years and last year got into over 100 games and hit a mere .265, but he sure looks good today.  Middlebrooks is hitting .409, but that is only over 5 games and while he has had a pretty good minor league career he has had only a handful of AAA games.  Others deep down in the system?  Maybe, but not sure there is gold there; I do not follow our depth charts.  Our much touted shortstop phenom who some in the press wanted to keep with the Big Club and start at short in favor of Aviles in hitting around .200 at Pawtucket and does not seem like much trading bait at this juncture.

Trade older guys on the major league roster?  Maybe not a bad idea. Shakes things up. But who?  Big Papi?  Big nerve to trade him.  Youk?  Popular idea in the press but, in the stands?  And right now he is not in the best position to be traded, some have suggested we put a fork in him (although that is likely an over-aggressive criticism).   Ellsbury?  No doubt high value but frankly he is the most exciting player we have.  Pedroia?  Wow.  Gonzalez?  Hard to say what to do.  Compared to these choices, Nomar was easy.

I think the Sox should forget this year and draw up a “rebuilding plan” that excludes old guys and trades for young pitching talent.  I don’t see them pulling it out of the fire this year.  Not sure, either, that the current management has it in them to rebuilt with the average loge seat costing almost a hundred bucks, guts-wise or skill-wise.

Now why have I taken so pessimistic a view?  I will tell you: it is part of my scheme to have the Sox finish first this year.  As soon as I write that X will happen, we get Y happening.  Having predicted doom, we will no doubt win fifty in a row.  I have tickets for this Saturday and again this coming Monday.  I hope to see my first Fenway-attended win by the Sox since early last August.  I will report.  Well, I will report if we win….

And meanwhile, the Newton South Little League AA Brewers are doing great this season.  This really young catcher is pounding the ball, sets up well with a big target, is learning to get the ball to second base.  Clear the roster for him if you will.  Matthew Honig is his name, and he looks a hell of lot better than the current Sox line-up, and can be had for a few sets of Legos on a long-term contract basis.