Red Sox Report: From Bad To Worse! Sox’ Sorry September Continues.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Scott Cordischi, GoLocalProv Sports Editor

As the Boston Red Sox continue to collapse like a folding chair, the logical question is: who’s to blame?

Unfortunately, there is not one person to blame. This is an organizational failure.

Ownership may have the least to do with the failure of the 2011 Red Sox. After all, they spend quite a bit of money on payroll. The one downside of that is having the need to recoup that money by tagging a sponsor on everything. I’m waiting for Don Orsillo to say something like, “this costly error by Darnell McDonald is brought to you by McDonald’s. Ba da da da da, I’m lovin’ it!”

Management deserves some of the blame too. Theo Epstein’s biggest free agent acquisitions the past two years have been absolute busts so far. Theo spent a lot of John Henry’s money on John Lackey and Carl Crawford and the two of them have been horrible. Sorry John! What’s $200 million between friends?

Then there’s Terry Francona. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best, Francona has to be a solid “9” since coming to Boston 8 years ago. However, some of his decisions of late have been closer to a “1.”

Let’s start with the fact that he has rolled out rookie Kyle Weiland for 3 consecutive starts (2 of them against Tampa Bay) while the team is fighting for its playoff life. I’m sorry, but you don’t start an unproven rookie in a situation like this. Alfredo Aceves should have been the play. Instead, Francona keeps Aceves in the bullpen to hold a lead in the 7th inning. The problem is that the Red Sox can’t get to the 7th inning with a lead because all of their starters with the exception of Josh Beckett have been horrible this month.

For you conspiracy theorists who believe that Theo and the front office is calling the shots by starting Weiland, that still does not exonerate Francona from not having a quicker trigger to get Weiland out of there and go to a guy like Aceves.

You also have to wonder why he decided to not start Carl Crawford Sunday against David Price. We all know that Crawford has not had a good year and his career numbers (0-9) against Price are awful. But so are the numbers of David Ortiz (2-16) and Adrian Gonzalez (1-11) and they were in the line-up. If you think that much of a player to spend $142 million on him, he should start against righties, lefties and ambidextrous pitchers for that matter. Plus, if you were hoping for Crawford to gain some confidence so that he can be a factor down the stretch and into October, benching him isn’t going to do the trick.

And then there’s the players. Most of the blame should be placed here. Does Carl Crawford really have a stiff neck? Or is he just using it as an excuse because he is furious with his benching on Sunday?

Adrian Gonzalez wants the local media and Red Sox fans that he is not one for excuses. When asked by the media if his surgically repaired shoulder has been an issue as of late, he shrugs it off telling us that everyone is banged up at this time of year. Yet, Gonzalez allegedly felt the need to leak to Fox’s Ken Rosenthal before Saturday’s nationally televised game that the shoulder surgery has affected his hitting. Which one is it, Adrian?

Jon Lester is supposed to be the team’s new ace. Yet he came up small in his two biggest starts of the year over the past week against the Rays

As bad as things are right now, there is still the possibility that this team will make the playoffs and could turn it around. Still, it does not excuse what we are witnessing right now.

Yes, this has been a collective failure – a true team effort. It’s too bad that this team effort hasn’t been one that makes us proud.