Red Sox 2, Astros 4: These Red Sox never learn

On June 15th, the Red Sox lost their seventh straight game, dropping them to eleven games below .500. History repeating itself is hardly unheard of, but it's awfully funny to see it happening again quite so soon. After a 2-4 loss to the Astros, the Red Sox again find themselves losers of seven straight, and again find themselves eleven games below .500.

On second thought, funny isn't the word.

Everyone knows the old adage that explains why history has a tendency to repeat itself. It happens when we don't learn from our past. When we don't take our mistakes and turn them into lessons. Frankly, the Red Sox are just making this connection too easy. Another seven-game losing streak, and who starts the last game? Joe Kelly. Joe Kelly who is now apparently set to stay in the rotation despite allowing three home runs in less than six innings of work. Let it really sink in: he was lucky to escape with just four earned given those bombs. This was basically Joe Kelly's best as a starter, and it stunk.

Oh, by the way, Kelly is staying in the rotation while Brian Johnson--a pitcher with some modicum of hope--was sent down today.

Another mistake that persists: the presence of Mike Napoli, who should have played his way out of the lineup probably six or seven weeks ago. He was not particularly to blame for the Sox scoring just two runs tonight. No more so than anyone else. It was just a tepid night altogether, though it's easy to pick out one major failure in the fifth inning, when David Ortiz, Hanley Ramirez, and Alejandro De Aza went down in order after the first four Red Sox batters of the inning had reached base to push across those two runs.

The results don't matter anymore, but with every passing game it becomes harder to believe that there's not something deeply wrong with the process involved in the day-to-day running of this team. Make your own judgement on the bigger picture moves, this past week has been awful choice after awful choice to the point where the Red Sox seem almost incapable of making good decisions.

If it seemed that the Red Sox had nothing left to lose, they're proving that's not the case. Even with their most ardent supporters these last 15 months, the Red Sox decision makers are fast losing the presumption of competence.