Boston's Grand 2010 Adventure: Choose Your Own Apocalypse

and Id like you to find me a positive to write about, regarding this season

But I struggle to find positives from the first three games. We can’t win this series, at best, we’ll tie and what had been a pretty easy Lester v. Moseley match up is now Lester v. Hughes, much more difficult. We had to win this four game series.

We let a no name pitcher dominate us last night and then failed to take advantage of the bullpen that they rolled out for us, we couldn’t even score on Joba, every one scores on Joba! Worse than that, we let Berkman get hot. The night before that we let Chunky Carsten beat the crap out of us for 8 innings. Just not looking good.

Meanwhile we also had an opportunity to gain on the Rays and did so minimally as the Jays dominated them like that kid that got held back that one year in grade school and suddenly was bigger and older than everyone else and used it to take their lunch money. The only positive there is that Tampa looks legit ready to nose dive, two of their pitchers are getting looked at for shoulder injuries and they got no hit for 8 2/3 innings (It is unbelievable how many no-hit games they take part in one way or another).

At best, we’re six behind the Yankees after today and with less than 50 games remaining on the schedule. In the wildcard we’re 4.5 back, we play 6 games with the Rays still and now the Twins are tied with us in that fight. Our situation didn’t really improve all that much, if it did at all and now nearly 10% of the remaining schedule has passed.

NG sent me a gift-wrapped Kool Aid set in the mail, how could I not indulge?…

In all seriousness, I try to be optimistic, but at this point I am fed up with all these injuries. It’s like watching a different team, kind of like, um… Pawtucket.

Every starter made his start. The lineup scored over 1000 runs. They were unlucky before the trade deadline, but in the sense they weren’t playing to full potential; they weren’t hurt, beaten up. This team is just bad.

have been good bench players that unfortunately have been pressed into every day roles. Frankly, we’ve been lucky to have them. It’s not like it was the plan to have them in the line-up every day.

But hindsight is 20/20

Lackey has been a pretty good pitcher in his career, no one could have foreseen really that he would start becoming very hittable all of a sudden he does show some flashes and one way or another we manage to win a lot of his starts so the damage he does with his pitching we’ve mostly been able to compensate for.

Scutaro has been a very good pick up. He, like arodlikes men said, has been everything we thought he would be. Average to plus defense at short and a pretty solid leadoff bat, he gets on base and takes a lot of pitches doing so.

Beltre has been a gem, maybe the best third baseman in baseball this year. Maybe it’s Fenway, maybe it’s a change of atmosphere or maybe it’s a contract year, either way Beltre was one of the best signings of any team this off season period and has been our team MVP with his awesome bat and great defense.

Cameron yes, hasn’t done much, but it’s hard not to appreciate that he played hurt for us most of the season just so we could have some sort of stability. But the man isn’t this old and holding down a starting job for nothing, he’s got a track record of being a great center fielder who keeps himself in tremendous shape, he’ll be back next year.

Hermida, nothing tried nothing gained, he was a fallen prospect who still had a chance to make it with a change of scenery, he could have been Theo’s next David Ortiz or he could have been the next Wily Mo Pena. We didn’t give up anything I particularly miss for him and he wasn’t doing too badly before he pissed off Beltre’s kneecap.

McDonald was a non-roster invitee, no one expected anything from him really, except for these guys. He came up at a time of need, propelled us to some wins and for a replacement player, has provided us with positive value so far this season. His bat isn’t great but provides adequate defense across the outfield. For someone who wasn’t supposed to do anything this year, he’s been great.

Hall, well, I hate Hall but it’s hard to overlook what he’s done for us this year. Lowell was handcuffing out roster early on, we needed to have one player that could play the infield and the outfield. Maybe Hall doesn’t play any particularly well but he cost us about nothing to pick up. Maybe Kotchman would have been nice to have, but we had Lowell as a backup 1B. The guy’s been asked to do a lot and he’s done it all. He even pitched a perfect inning for us. For the little amount we’re actually spending on him, he’s provided us with a 1 WAR season so far.

Every player you listed besides the two injured ones Hermida and Cameron, have provided the team with a positive WAR this year, even Lackey.

But you’re missing the point, Hermida, Hall, McDonald, those there minor acquisitions, compare them to Swisher all you want, they weren’t on the same level, Swisher was a good player who was having his worst season ever, a prime buy low candidate that the Yankees jumped on. At the time you’ll have to remember we had Bay, Ellsbury and Drew, our outfield was set.

This year Theo didn’t need to make any trades to get our major pieces in place. We needed an CF/LF so he went out and got defensive whiz with a good bat Cameron. We needed a 3B so he took a flyer on Beltre. SS, how about Scutaro? Everything else was a bench or role player.

Taking injuries into account there isn’t a player on this roster, besides the RPs, that have played down at a minor league level. On top of that, we’ve had minor league players come up and be revelations, Nava was a sensation with a legit bat. Kalish has been damned good so far in his debut, Felix Doubront came up and pitched very well IMO, for a guy no one knew about this season, he came up, gave us what, 3 starts, and each one put us in a position to win the game.

They’re on pace for 192 home runs as opposed to 244