“whistling in the dark”,but what else is there right now?

…but they’ve had to do too much since the all-star break, and the wear is starting to show. That and they were collectively lights out for the first three months of the season, Paps being the exception and his results were still excellent, and they’re regressing to merely very good now.

The starting pitching has been mostly solid, but not great. Beckett and Lester slumped a little toward the beginning of the year, but overall have been great. Wake was good, but it was inevitable that he’d hit the DL for a while. Penny has had his moments, but overall has been an average fifth starter at best, which isn’t good enough when Dice-K has been so bad you’d think the MFY were paying him and Smoltz was almost as bad once he joined the rotation. Buch’s two best starts were his first one, which wasn’t great, and his most recent one, which was acceptable but also not great.

And there’s simply no excuse for being shut out for 31 straight innings. That’s just pathetic.

We need Wake back. We need Drew, Bay, and Ortiz to pick up their games. We need Tek not to be an automatic out (good luck with that). We need the Green/Woodward/Guzman platoon not to suck any more than they already do — they’d be fine as backups, but if Lowrie can’t stay healthy, we need a better solution at shortstop in the long term. And I’d like to see Bowden get a shot at the rotation — he can’t possibly do worse than Dice-K, Smoltz, Penny, and Buchholz have done.

I still think this team is going to the playoffs, and they’re definitely better than the MFY, but they’re underachieving like they’re the Washington Nationals, and that has to stop.

Dreaming on!!! They will be same shit team until season over ! Ortiz must be release ! Not sign Bay back ! Cut him loose! lousy mental toughness

“Pitching is 80 percent of the game,” the eccentric outfielder Mickey Rivers once said. “And the other half is hitting and fielding.”

With that in mind, the sky is neither falling, nor should everything be looked at through rose-colored glasses.

This week is important to get some confidence restored, so we can continue to make a solid run at the playoffs.

Pedroia is a solid player but Youk is great. Youk is clearly the best player on the team and he should step up.

I’m telling you it is OVER! Things looked great up until the All-star break but this collapse is more dramatic than that chinese hotel that got washed away in the typhoon over the weekend. This line up doesn’t scare anyone, it’s pathetic! Pappy is no good without the Juice. He is in fact nothing more than a double play looking for a place to happen. And can someone tell me; when was the last time that Jason Veritek delivered a clutch hit? Face it! 2009 is over. That tight wad Epstein better spend some money in the off-season……….

Don’t try to apply logic and market based principles to something as purely emotional as being a sox fan………

Keep the faith. Boston is too good a team to get knocked down and stay down. Beckett fuels himself and is probably the most dominant pitcher in the AL all season. The bats will show signs of life, and then fade. JD went 3-4 last night, not too shabby, but definitely a lot of swagger is gone. There are 3 hitters keeping this sinking team afloat. Pedroia, Youk, and Ellsbury. Green faded, Drew faded, Lowell cant play everyday, Ortiz has been a mystery all year, Bay obviously faded, V-mart has been a great addition but definitely lacks leadership qualities which is understandable considering he’s on a brand new team. ( not to mention a title contender) Varitek had a hot start, but he’s faded, its time to swing at good pitches, not be so desperate and make opposing pitchers come to us. Draw walks, get on base. Play station to station fundamental baseball if thats what it takes to warm up the bats again. But without someone standing up and challenging this team to push themselves, they will become fat cats, and thats hard to say because I’m crazy about this team. I hang on every pitch of every game. Tonight a good showing against Detroit should give us an idea of where we are and what we need to do to get back to the top-tier team we are. Hopefully it comes at the expense of Edwin Jackson’s ERA, cuz we know Penny is gonna give up a few runs…

In times of crisis, people tend to refer back to 2004. But I’m not sure how much relevance that has to now. There are very few players from that team still remaining. Instead, I look back to last October, game five of the ALCS, when the Sox, facing elimination, pulled off the greatest single game postseason comeback of all time, coming back from seven runs down. i promised then that i would never give up on the red sox again, and i won’t.