Lamenting the Lineup: Red Sox Still Searching for Consistency

The state of the Boston Red Sox was summed up rather tidily by Sunday afternoon’s lineup card.

It was difficult not to laugh out loud at the team the Sox ran out against the Rangers. Four of the nine players listed in the batting order weren’t with the team as recently as July 30. Two of them weren’t even there last Thursday.

Indeed, adding such sultans of swat as Brian Anderson and Alex Gonzalez does not a Murderer’s Row make.

It was a pretty telling picture. Injuries, suspensions, and desperation moves have created something of a revolving door in the Red Sox clubhouse.

Victor Martinez, of course, is the signature acquisition, but punishment doled out to Kevin Youkilis pushed Casey Kotchman into the lineup, and the usual creakiness of J.D. Drew—coupled with the wake-up call suffered by prospect Josh Reddick—necessitated the promotion from Triple-A and immediate insertion into the outfield of Anderson, a White Sox castoff known for his defense because, well, he has little offense.

Add to the mix Gonzalez, a slick fielder acquired to solidify the infield defense with little promise of adding to the offense, and you have a lineup with a handful of easy outs. It’s like a National League lineup.

A bad National League lineup.

Things aren’t all doom and gloom, of course. Martinez has been a fine addition, as he was expected to be. Youkilis will be back this week, and David Ortiz has seemingly begun to find his stroke after lashing out at the media over the weekend. Also, Jason Bay has started to look like the Jason Bay we saw in April and May.

In part, though, that’s what’s troubling. Friday’s win, a dramatic, come-from-behind victory solidified in the top of the ninth by Martinez’ first significant Red Sox moment—a hard-fought at-bat in which he rebounded from a 1-2 count and fouled off a handful of tough offerings before lining the game-changing double—was the kind of victory that brings teams together.

Friday’s triumph seemed as stirring as last Friday’s 15-inning affair at the Bronx was devastating. It was the kind of game that righted the ship. Think A-Rod vs. Varitek in 2004. That brawl, and Bill Mueller’s subsequent walk-off against Mariano Rivera, is largely credited as the moment the World Title march was set in motion. I thought for a minute that Friday would have a similar effect.

Not so much. Instead, the bats struggled to solve Ranger pitching—a sentence I never thought I’d write—and the Sox were unable to keep up, turning over the keys to the Wild Card car. Make no mistake about it—the Rangers are now squarely in the driver’s seat.

The game of baseball is like this. It’s why games aren’t played on paper. Based on the names filling the Red Sox roster this spring, it appeared they would be battling for a World Series spot come October. Now they’re fighting for a spot at the postseason table. It takes a lot more than talent over the course of 162 games.

You also need remarkable luck. Think back to 2004. Somehow, and I’ll never understand how, the Red Sox made it through the entire season without a significant injury to any of their key starting pitchers. Pedro, Schilling, D-Lowe, Wakefield, Arroyo—they all made the majority of their starts.

Now take a look at this season. Daisuke was done before the Major League season even began, John Smoltz turned out to be still-damaged goods, Wakefield is starting to look more and more like a 40-something pitcher, Brad Penny is having a traditional second-half slumber, and Clay Buchholz has yet to fulfill his seemingly endless promise (though his last two outings were certainly major steps in the right direction).

What looked like depth of steel in the spring has turned out to be softer than a Boston Crème donut. Whether that’s the Red Sox fault for not making a big splash with Mark Teixeira or Roy Halladay or whoever, or it’s just the way the game goes is debatable.

But one thing’s for sure—Theo never envisioned a mid-August lineup featuring castoffs from cellar-dwelling teams and a 23-year-old starting pitcher who toiled last year in the Japanese Industrial League.

But that’s what he’s left with. And the Sox need to find a way to make it work in the next few weeks, or the pennant race will have passed them by.

Because while lineup cards like the one Francona filled out Sunday may not have been part of the master plan, they’re quickly becoming part of reality.