It's hard to have faith in a team after an 0-6 start. Even with a group of talent as impressive as this one, looking past the poor performances is difficult. After six games, "He's a six WAR player, he'll rebound," for Carl Crawford quickly becomes "I can't believe we're going to have to deal with this guy for the next seven years. Julio Lugo 2.0?" Daniel Bard, the heir apparent to the closing throne, is now a bum who can't throw strikes. And Kevin Youkilis? Well that guy is just plain killing us.
If we want to quantify it, well, we do have these fan confidence polls on SB Nation. They're hiding over there on the top of the left taskbar, keeping track of the mood of each fanbase. Three weeks ago, ours was as high as a kite, reaching into the 90's. Then came the spring training losing spreak, the Opening Day loss, and finally, 0-6.
We now sit at 56--the lowest of any team in Boston. From the top of the world to rock bottom.
The fact of the matter is that the Red Sox have a long way to go to even have this fanbase feeling the least bit good about them. With a 10 game homestand coming up--against the Yankees, Jays, and Rays no less--the Sox will need to go 8-2 just to wind up at .500 halfway through the month. Right now, much of the fanbase would accept 5-5. Some will be happy just to get the one win, no matter what comes after.
And then they get to head West.
Tomorrow is the home opener; what is typically a joyous occasion is now just one filled with doubt and disappointment. The question was posed in the game thread, and I think it's fairly legitimate:
Red Sox fans, do you boo?