Red Sox Beat: Would You Pay $75 Million For This Man?

At the end of May, left fielder and post-Manny savior Jason Bay was the toast of Boston. At the completion of the first two months of the season, Bay was hitting .288 with 15 home runs, a .415 on-base percentage and 49 RBI—MVP numbers for a guy who helped save the team from the early-season slump of David Ortiz.

At the time, everyone—including the guy writing this—was ready to give Bay whatever he wanted to stay. After being an offensive powerhouse and calming presence following last July's Ramirez trade, there was no reason to want the British Colombia, Canada, native to go anywhere else.

In baseball exile in Pittsburgh for his entire career, Bay finally got his chance on the Boston big stage and came through time and time again in clutch situations—and he played a great left field! It was like having Shawn Michaels blast you with a super-kick and then Bret Hart swoops in and saves the day for the good guys at the last minute (sorry, non-WWF/E fans).

Five years, $75 million? Sure! How about more! Don't let the Yankees get him!

But since the last day of May, Bay's bat has been fading away like Marty McFly's family in a Polaroid, and it's really starting to settle in that the guy we got to love so much may not be worth the money we were ready to give him earlier this season.

These are the decisions that will keep a general manager up at night, especially nights like Wednesday where Bay went 0-4 with three strikeouts in another disappointing loss to the suddenly "juggernautish" Oakland A's.

The slide began in June—a month in which Bay hit just .230 with four homers, 20 RBI and a .301 OBP. But what's interesting is that his patience at the plate has also begun to slide since April, when he walked 23 times to striking out 17 times. In May, that number flip-flopped (14 walks to 27 k's), continued in June (10-to-27) and is almost dead-even in July (19-to-27).

Not coincidentally, his average has been sinking like a stone in Casco Lake with every passing game. July has been especially brutal as he's batting just .203 since July 1, dropping his average from .262 to .251—28 points below his career average. Along with that, his power has been non-existent (his last long ball was back on July 7) and he's not driving in runs (five RBI accounting for 7% of his season total of 74).

Maybe it's the contract talks and impending free agency that's in his head. Maybe we're seeing what happens to a player when they are exposed to the Boston media for the duration of a full season. Maybe it's just a long, extended slump that will end any day.

No matter what it is, there is undeniably something wrong with Jason Bay.

So where do we go from here? With the rest of the offense equally tanking these days, this has been a terrible time for Bay to go into an extended slump—one that he isn't showing any signs of coming out of.

He's had just two multi-hit games this month and the media scrutiny on the Red Sox is growing with every game lost in the standings to that team in New York.

As August 1 approaches, Boston needs Jason Bay to put the last two months behind him and focus on August and September...or else there's going to be no October. We're about to see what Bay is all about and hopefully, he's everything we thought and more.

If not, prepare for a Matt Holliday bidding war this winter as part of a major restructuring for the Red Sox offense.

Josh Nason is the publisher and main writer for Small White Ball, a New England-based sports and media blog, and has been a Bleacher Report contributor since 2008. He can be reached at josh [at] smallwhiteball [dot-com] or on his Twitter feed.