Carl Crawford is heating up and delivering in clutch for Red Sox

Carl Crawford was hitting .155 at the end of April. He's at .212 after beating the Tigers, and starting to heat up.

This season has been a difficult one for Carl Crawford, the Boston Red Sox left-fielder who was signed to a seven-year, $142 million deal this past winter. He entered Thursday’s game against the Detroit Tigers hitting just .205, 89 points lower than his career average. Yet, despite having a tough time getting used to his new surroundings, he continues to deliver when it matters most as part of his May revival to spark his streaking team.

It was a dismal evening in Boston, wet, cold, and foggy. Their play on the field wasn’t much better than the weather. Ace Josh Beckett had left in the sixth inning due to neck stiffness, and set-up man Daniel Bard coughed up a 3-1 lead by allowing back-to-back solo-homers to Tigers’ sluggers Brennan Boesch and Miguel Cabrera.

Then, with one swing of the bat, the Red Sox mood changed as mist dampened Fenway. The bases were loaded in the bottom of the ninth, and the fans were on their feet, hoping their offseason investment would come through. He has had some success this season, especially this month by getting hits in successive games often, stealing a few bases, and scoring some runs, but even still, he needed a boost.

He already had two game-winning hits, tying his the amount he had in his last three years with the Tampa Bay Rays. He would surpass that threshold, lacing a fastball from Tigers reliever Al Alburquerque over the head of center-fielder Austin Jackson to plate Kevin Youkilis and start the celebration.

Thanks to Crawford’s heroics, Boston has now won their past six games and eight of their last ten, putting them at 23-20 and only 1 1/2 games back of first-place Tampa. There is a lot to cheer about in Boston, and their fans want to have reasons to keep cheering Crawford in particular.

When I went to see the Red Sox play the Rays last September at Fenway Park, Boston was shellacked early and often. The game was over by the end of the sixth inning, as Tampa Bay was ahead 14-2, but a solid collection of fans remained. This being my first Fenway experience, I was surprised by their loyalty. Seats were particularly filled in my section down the first-base line, and they sung Sweet Caroline and other songs even as their team was in the midst of losing more ground in the division. And when the Red Sox scored three runs in the eighth inning the celebration was as if those runs were of the winning variety. The scene’s entirety was amazing.

The point of my relaying this story is that fans will root for their team even under dire circumstances. Since the Red Sox are currently on fire, this translates over to individual players as well. Unless a someone calls out the team in the media or doesn’t give full effort on the field, they will have no reason not to be an encouraging force.

Crawford has done all he can to try to get out of his season-long slump. He has at least a hit in 14 of 17 games this month, good for a .294 May clip. He has hustled down the line, taken off on stolen-base attempts, and tracked down balls in the outfield.

He is trying to live up to the $21.2 million salary he will make over the course of his contract, and if that decimal point is moved over two spaces he is batting the equivalent. Yet, the very slow start is beginning to become an afterthought. Some players would panic with his overall struggles, but he hasn’t been trying to do too much at the plate. As a result, he is heating up along with his new team, just as his many thousand fans in Boston knew he would, getting acclimated and plating winning runs in the process.

(AP Photo/Charles Krupa through Daylife)