Another Sweep - But this One's Bad

Dad --

It was so much fun to have you here this weekend for Aidan and Gary's birthday party. But what made it especially cool, was being able to sit and watch the games with you. Too bad the games were torture.

At this point with the Red Sox being 7 games out of first, I don't know what to say because I can't point to any one problem. When our pitching is good, we have no run support, and when we get the runs, our defense decides to take a vacation. It's becoming absurd and seriously frustrating.

I won't talk about Beckett because honestly I'm sick of talking about him. As you witnessed, he seems to be good for the first two or three innings and then his arm dies. That doesn't make for a good starter. It makes for a good reliever. But something tells me Beckett has no interest in filling that role.

Dice-K finally came back and I for one was excited. But again, he's clearly not the Dice-K of old. Now, I understand it was his first game back, and maybe he did have a small case of the jitters, but come on. And I know I can't blame Saturday's game entirely on Dice-K, after all he was good for the first four innings, but he fell apart in the 5th giving up six runs.

Then Wakefield came out and hammered in the final nails by giving up another 5 runs. Is it possible his age is catching up with him? He is 43 after all. I personally believe Wakefield may have been paying the Sox back for shuffling him off to the bullpen to make room for the younger pitcher. It's unprofessional and probably not what happened, but right now, it's the only reason I can come up with.

Which brings me to another issue the Red Sox seem to be having this season - leaving the starters in too long. What's that about? Is Terry really that concerned with the bullpen that he's afraid to pull our starter when things go south? If so, it may be time to start looking for a new pitching staff.

But based on the last few seasons, I honestly don't know if that will help. Every year Theo goes out during the off season and spends a ton of money to get better pitchers so we can win. And yet, somehow we always end up however many games out of first. Is he going off stats and not really watching? Or is it just injuries that happen to crop up at the worst possible time? I have no idea. All I do know is it's only been a month and I'm already frustrated as hell.

Jenn