Red Sox Enjoy Some Home Cooking as Offense Explodes Against Angels in Boston

The first 30 days of the 2010 Red Sox season have been an abysmal failure by most standards.

The club’s oft-maligned offense has been surprisingly productive, while the vaunted "pitching and defense" approach embraced by the front office during the offseason has borne bitter fruit.

John Lackey has been decent, but not worthy of the $16-plus million annual salary he commanded in the offseason. Mike Cameron has, for all intents and purposes, only made a cameo appearance thus far. Adrian Beltre has already committed six—yes, six—errors at third base, and Marco Scutaro has committed three at shortstop.

Has anyone noticed that "offensive liability" Alex Gonzalez has hit eight home runs and knocked in 21 runs in Toronto?

I mean, that was the reason Theo Epstein wanted him to wait on the sidelines while he negotiated with Scutaro, right? Because the Red Sox wanted more offense out of their shortstop?

A-Gon would be leading the Red Sox in homers and be tied with Dustin Pedroia for the team lead in ribbies if he were still in Boston.

I said it this winter and I’ll say it again: the ballclub should have stood by Mike Lowell and should have re-signed Gonzalez. (Yet another mis-step by a front office that has proven it is not a very good judge of talent at the shortstop position! Umm, nice call, guys.)

Red Sox Nation has started to panic...some fans are already abandoning ship.

The Boston Globe has posted an embarrassing poll on boston.com asking whether it is too early to give up on the 2010 edition of the Red Sox. (Shame on you, Globe editors!)

And so, in the wake of an utterly disappointing April, a horrific weekend debacle in Baltimore, and The Nation foolishly clamoring for change and/or someone’s head to be put on the chopping block (Ortiz), the players called a players-only meeting at Fenway Park yesterday afternoon.

It lasted 10 minutes. We don’t know what may have transpired behind closed doors, but we certainly know it had an effect on the ballclub’s on-field performance...at least for one night.

The Red Sox jumped out to an early 5-0 lead. And then, after previously dependable Clay Buchholz lost concentration and scuffled through the middle innings, allowing the Los-Angeles-Angels-of-the Los-Angeles-suburb-of-Anaheim to inch back to within three runs (7-4), the offense exploded for 10 runs in the sixth and seventh innings to lock up a much-needed 17-8 win.

Of the team meeting, Pedroia said: “We changed our mindset. We need to play well. We didn’t play well in Baltimore. We expected things to happen.”

Maybe the team finally came to the realization that they need to MAKE things happen, instead of waiting around.

After the ballgame, manager Terry Francona said: “It was nice to have a night like that. (The players) felt good about themselves. A lot of good things happened from top to bottom.”

The Red Sox built an early lead with three runs in the second inning and two more in the third off lefty Joe Saunders. First baseman Kevin Youkilis homered to lead off the second inning. Later in the inning, left fielder Bill Hall hit his first home run as a member of the Red Sox to extend the lead to 3-0. Lowell added a two-run double in the third to increase the lead to five runs.

Buchholz, who was hit on the ankle by a Kendry Morales grounder in the second inning, seemed to lose his concentration after Morales whistled another ground ball through his legs in the fourth. He allowed four consecutive hits that resulted in three runs. He was eventually pulled from the game in the sixth inning after allowing three more singles and another run.

The offense answered in the bottom of the frame with seven runs on a walk and seven hits, including home runs by Beltre (two-run) and Pedroia (three-run). As with Hall, it was Beltre’s first homer as a member of the Red Sox.

They added three more runs in the seventh. J.D. Drew , Lowell (RBI) and Beltre (RBI) started the inning with consecutive doubles. After a Hall single, Darnell McDonald drove in the team’s final run with a ground ball to shortstop.

Los Angeles scored four meaningless runs in the ninth inning off why-is-he-still-employed lefty Scott Schoeneweis.

Lowell, who had four hits and raised his batting average to .300, said “We feel like we’ve got the right combination. Maybe this will get us going.”

With Jon Lester on the bump tonight, it seems a solid bet it will continue—at least for another night.

Lowell was asked if he thought last night should earn him more playing time. He responded: “I feel like I earned more playing time by the last 11 years of my career if you take away 2005. If you told me my numbers were terrible last year, than I deserve not to play. That’s my stance. We’ll go to the next question.”

Opponents stole 37 of 39 bases in the first 17 games of the season, but they are just 1-for-7 in the last nine games. A lot of it has to do with who the Sox have played, but it’s also a function of the facts that the team is paying closer attention to holding runners and Victor Martinez has improved his throwing.