Why You Shouldn't Be Concerned About The Boston Red Sox Offense

Being a Red Sox fan, sometimes it becomes easy to forget the past because we are always in the present. Every game is treated to tens of beat writers contributing dozens of daily stories, hours of pre-game and post-game coverage and about 1.5 million blogs and message boards - all devoted to the team that plays on Yawkey Way and the 25-man roster we know and breathe by heart.

But if you can tolerate looking back for a minute, I want to take you to a year ago and how the 2008 season started:

• Boston started out with seven road games (two in Japan, two in Oakland, three in Toronto) and went 3-4, closing it out by being swept in the SkyDome in frustrating fashion.
• On April 8, they debuted at home with a 5-0 victory with Daisuke Matusaka starting and then lost the next night 7-2 with Jon Lester on the hill. After nine games, Boston stood at a pretty boring 4-5.
• During that nine-game opening stanza, the Red Sox averaged 3.33 runs per game and allowed an average of 4.55 - normally not a terrible disparity but the Boston offense was so highly regarded that the struggles were deemed unacceptable.

Then, things started to turn around.

• They doubled up the Tigers 12-6 in their 10th game with Tim Wakefield pitching, one of 11 wins the team would post over their next 13 games - a streak that put them at three games up on the division after beginning three games back at the start of it.
• During that time, they took 3-of-5 from the Yankees, swept Cleveland in a two-game series, swept Texas in a four-game set and took the opening game of a three-game series against the Angels. (The team would then lose five in a row, but that's not the point.)
• The offense that was scuffling so much before was burning up, averaging 6.8 runs per game - a good thing as the pitching staff started letting up an average of five runs per game during the streak.
  
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So you remember all that? What's the point, you ask? The panic fans seemed to have over the Red Sox offense to start this season. Take a deep breath and look at the numbers. You'll find that the similarities to last season are pretty amazing.

• Boston started out the year 2-6 - opening with a disappointing series against Tampa Bay in Boston and looking mediocre at best against Oakland and Anaheim on the West Coast.
  
• It was the first time in decades that Boston had lost three straight series to open up a season. I can't find the stat, but I believe it goes back to 1950s.
  
• The offense sputtered, averaging just 3.6 runs per game thanks to Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia and the puzzling David Ortiz doing nothing at the top of the order.The pitching wasn't doing much better, yielding an average of just under 5.4 runs per game.

But like a year ago, this veteran-laden club flipped a switch and suddenly began to rip through their opponents.

• On the final game of the dismal West Coast trip, they downed Oakland 8-2 (coincidentally with Wakefield on the mound like when the '08 streak started, nearly throwing a no-hitter).
• They decimated Baltimore in a four-game sweep - culminated by a 12-1 Patriots Day thrashing that saw the entire offense get their rocks off from the hapless O's pitchers.
• In the last five games, their offense is putting up 7.6 runs per game while their pitching bucked last year's trend and had yielded just 3.2 runs per outing over the last five.

So what did we learn? That the season is young and that this club is not. Sometimes, it takes older players a bit longer to get going and much like the year before, the Red Sox are now in full swing and making another run at putting together a long win streak that will put them atop the division.

Look at the positives during the slump: Kevin Youkilis was offensively leading this club with Jason Bay and *gulp* J.D. Drew and *double gulp* Jason Varitek providing some key hits. Even shortstop Nick Green contributed and Mike Lowell has been steady thus far. If you believed that Ellsbury, Pedroia and Ortiz would eventually come around, what has happened in the last week shouldn't surprise you but seemingly for a lot of fans, it apparently should have.

While panic may be great for talk shows and the uneducated who find it easier to complain than to seek the truth, relax. This team was built for the entire season, not just a two-week slow stretch to open the year that will be forgotten come the fall.

And look who's coming into Fenway this week: a 7-7 Minnesota Twins team and some club in pinstripes that is having a tough time keeping the ball in the yard. In other words, the offensive forecast calls for blue skies and a lot of runs from a team that was built for it.

There's nothing wrong with concern, but there is when you don't put logic behind it.

Josh Nason is the publisher and main writer for Small White Ball, a New England-based sports and media blog. He can be reached at josh [at] smallwhiteball [dot-com] or on Twitter [@joshnason].