• I am a fan of Bobby Valentine.  A lot of people have ripped on him so far this season, especially for the way he treated Youkilis early this season, but the fact remains he has gotten the absolute most out of the bull pen so far and his hodge podge lineups seem to get runs.  Great decision to put Shoppach out their for the 8^th inning pinch hit.  Tito always seemed a little too hesitant to pinch hit for struggling players.  That said, what was he thinking pinch hitting for Ciriaco in the ninth?  I mean, I like Punto.  He seems like a nice guy and all, and I understand that Ciriaco had gone 0 for 3 on the evening, but it seems like Punto has gone 0 for the season so far.  Mystifying.
• Youkilis is absolutely on fire.  It is still incredibly weird for me to see him in an opposing uniform.  I love Middlebrooks, he is definitely the future, but I miss Youk already.
• Speaking of which, remember all the media talk about Youkilis as the clubhouse snitch?  And remember how Josh Beckett was snitch-hunting more zealously than Harry Potter in a game of Quiddich?  Well, incredibly lame Harry Potter reference aside, I thought it was interesting that when Youk was first introduced to Fenway and the NESN camera crew got a shot of the pitchers, Beckett was the only one clapping.  Maybe there was less clubhouse drama than the media made it out to be.  Go figure.
• Lester needs to step up.  Preferably sooner rather than later. He’s far too talented to be knocked around like he has been.
• Did Valentine break a mirror or walk under a ladder?  Did he boast in the face of the baseball gods?  What is going on with the injuries on this team?  Maybe Ortiz is right, maybe this team is cursed.  These freak injuries are getting really old, really fast.  Losing the best hitter in the American League is a huge blow to the team.  Hopefully he comes back because we need a regular DH.
• Daniel Nava is quickly losing potency.   He has been a big contributor to the team so far this year, but he seems to watch a lot of strike three’s.
• Good to see Crawford and Ellsbury doing what they were designed to do.  Last night, they were a dynamic duo on the basepaths, terrorizing pitchers and catchers alike.  They not only add a whole new dimension to the offense, but also are incredibly fun to watch.
• Adrian Gonzalez all of the sudden displayed the power he was so lacking this season when he blasted an opposite field shot in game one against the White Sox.  If he can keep this up and Crawford can produce like he has in his first two games back, the season may not be over yet.
• There’s still a whole lot of baseball to play.

Given the pessimism, panic, and detest in the Boston media you’d think the Red Sox came together and announced that they were all Yankees fans and had given up on the season in order to root for their favorite team.  Most notably Boston.com’s Eric Wilbur’s call for the team to trade Adrian Gonzalez early in the season.  Wilbur called him apathetic, surly, and the unlikeable face of an unlikable team, as well as a racist, a neo-nazi, a communist, and a Christmas-hater. Not sure about those last few but it was scathing, to say the least.  The problem, Mr. Wilbur, is that it was all conjecture.  He failed to address Gonzalez’s ability to hit when it matters (.372 average with runners in scoring position) and while he may only have 6 homeruns, he leads the league in doubles.  So he’s having a down year so far, but that doesn’t mean you should trade away the team’s best hitter.  That goes for every WEEI caller who insists the Sox do so, too.

And for what it’s worth, in almost every interview I’ve seen with Adrian Gonzalez, he seems fairly likeable when the question isn’t completely asinine.

So, with all this negativity it seems only proper that we start with what worries me going forward in the season.

What worries me

The rotation: First and foremost is probably the biggest reason the Red Sox have had such a hard time this season.  Jon Lester and Josh Beckett have underperformed to say the least.  Clay Buchholz has had a horrific beginning, followed by a good recovery, followed by an injury to end this first half.  Daisuke Matsuzaka took forever to get back, and then just when he was showing promise, was reinjured.  Daniel Bard was a disaster.  Way to go there Red Sox.  Didn’t learn anything from how the Yankees handled Joba?  Aaron Cook’s bright spot was a complete game shut out against the Mariners, which sort of balances out his abominable first start.  Finally, Morales and Doubront were actually pleasant surprises.

Going forward, I’m worried most about Doubront and Morales who have been one of the few positives of this rotation.  Both are starting after being in the bullpen for several years, and so may very well start to break down as their bodies aren’t accustomed to the work load.  Aaron Cook will continue to be mediocre.  He’s out of his prime and his best season was in 2008 when he went 16-9 with a 3.96 ERA.  Other than that he is a lifetime 4.52 ERA with a 1.464 WHIP.  Not exactly Cy Young.  Still don’t really know why everybody was so excited about him.  Hard times for the back of the rotation ahead.

Bullpen:  I’m saying it right now.  Albers, Padilla, and Atchison are over-performing.  They have never been that good, none of them are particularly young, and none of them are going to start being that good now.  I worry that Valentine thinks otherwise and I fear that if he does, it’s going to cost us quite a few games going forward.  They are going to come back down to earth.  Hard.

Lineup:  Here I worry most about the injuries.  Is Crawford ever going to be healthy?  How someone can have so many setbacks is beyond me.  When they do get healthy, I worry that they will be rusty after having been injured so long, especially with Ellsbury and Pedroia, who seemed to be going on a tear when he rehurt his thumb.  Maybe it’s time to find a new trainer.  Also,  Mike Aviles, while he has so far racked up a nice RBI total has a .283 OBP.  He’s not getting better either.  Maybe the Scutaro trade wasn’t such a good idea.

 What I have hopes for

The Rotation:  I actually expect the front three in the rotation of Lester, Beckett, and Buchholz to start improving.  Lester in particular is still young and still extremely talented.  He hasn’t lost any velocity.  He just seems to be getting cutter-happy.  He is going return back to dominance.  Hopefully sooner rather than later.  The same may be said of Buchholz, though he has lacked Lester’s consistency, he has shown flashes of brilliance.  Beckett, meanwhile, may continue to pitch as he has.  Given that this is an even year, for whatever reason he will underperform.  But if he finishes with an ERA in the low 4’s, the Red Sox will take that, I’m sure.  That said, what all three of these pitchers will require is run support which has been denied specifically to Beckett and Lester so far.  Without timely hitting, the Red Sox won’t win too many games.

The Bullpen:  Mark Melancon is going to be the best bullpen pitcher we have by the end of the season.  How’s THAT for a bold prediction?  He’s still young, has a devastating curveball and is anxious to prove himself following his disastrous start to the season.  Andrew Bailey is promising too, if he can ever get healthy.  And who knows?  Maybe Daniel Bard can go back to being the ace setup man he was before the front office decided to fix something that wasn’t broken.  If those three perform with stability provided by Aceves and Miller, the Sox will have an excellent bullpen.

 The Lineup:  Finally we come to the lineup.  The biggest difference I expect here is Adrian Gonzalez.  He is too good not to start heating up.  Going into the all-star break he had begun to get in a groove, hitting .393 over the last 61 at bats.  He just needs the power to come through and he will once again be one of the best first basemen in the game.  I also expect Ellsbury to be a difference maker once he returns.  His speed on the base paths as well as his power and hitting ability completely change the dynamic of the Red Sox offence. When he is missing, they are a completely different, much less exciting, team.

Friday, the Sox are back at it, playing the Rays to begin a stretch of games that is unforgiving.  I don’t know why, but I have a good feeling about the team going forward.  They may yet live up to their potential.

The two cases of Tommy John surgery opens up two slots in the rotation and unless you have been living under a rock, you know that the Boston media has full on hit the panic button.  Ben Cherington, completely handcuffed by the ownership made only token offers to Edwin Jackson and Roy Oswalt and instead hit the bargain bin and signed a series of what his predecessor referred to as “low-risk high-reward” signings.  That basically means that he signed a ton of pitchers who are either washed up or never lived up to their potential and hopes that one of them will pan out.

Given that Daniel Bard is the likely fourth starter, having converted to a starter after three dominant seasons out of the bullpen, there is only one spot in the rotation left open.  Injuries, mostly minor, have left only a few likely candidates for the remaining slot and so we’ll take a look at those who are still in the running.

Aaron Cook:

(Globe Staff Photo/Jim Davis)

In what was apparently a salary dump, Ben Cherington traded Marco Scutaro to the Colorado Rockies for Aaron Cook.  While the merits of trading your starting shortstop for a hopeful fifth starter with a career 4.53 ERA and who went 3-10 with a 6.03 ERA last year are rather questionable, Cook is now in the running for the fifth spot.  Red Sox fans may remember Aaron Cook as the man who pitched game four of the 2007 World Series for the Rockies.  Primarily a sinkerball pitcher, he also features a workable slider and an occasional curveball.  Cook’s best year was undoubtedly 2008 in which he went 16-9 with a 3.96 ERA and a 1.344 WHIP, which earned him a spot at the All-Star game.  That said, he’s been on a slide every year after that with his ERA increasing by almost a run each year.  Leaving Coors field and moving to a different league may help him a little, but I still don’t expect Cook to contribute very much to the team.  At best, he may be a functional fifth starter, what he has been for pretty much his whole career. At 33, he’s not going to get much better.

Andrew Miller:

Bob Levey/Getty Images

The Red Sox signed the former first round pick last year and became enamored with his stuff.  Bringing him up to fill in an injury rattled rotation, Miller met mixed results.  The 6’7 left hander’s best start came August 25 against the Texas Rangers in which he went 6.1 shutout innings against the Texas Rangers giving up only three hits, walking two, and striking out six.  His worst start was his next, a week later also against the Rangers in which he went only one out into the second inning and was shelled for six runs before being pulled.  All told he finished last year with a 6-3 record and a 5.54 ERA.  The potential is there for Miller.  His fastball hits 95, but flattens out and becomes difficult to control at that speed.  His secondary pitches, a slider and a rare changeup, also have promise but he sometimes loses all ability to locate them.  Control is probably his biggest issue; he has a 5.4 BB/9 career rate.  He’s only 26, so he has growing to do, but he’s had 6 seasons in the league now and has failed to post an ERA under 5 in all but one season.  The window is closing on Miller and as he ages he will go from untapped talent to washed-up.  Also hurting Miller’s case is an elbow sprain that has kept him from the spring games.  Will he finally live up to that potential this year?

Vincente Padilla: 

Seems like Padilla has been around forever doesn’t it?  At 34, without a doubt the firey Nicaraguan’s best days are behind him.  The last time he was an All-Star, the best players on the Sox were still Nomar and Pedro.  Still, perhaps the front office is attempting to emulate the necromantic success the Yankees had last season when they were able to call forth the careers of Colon and Garcia from beyond the grave.  To be fair, Padilla has had a better history of success than Cook or Miller.  From 2002-2003 he won 28 games with 261 strikeouts and an ERA of 3.45 to go with a nice 1.227 WHIP.  He was the Dodgers opening day starter as recently as 2010 and he is certainly entertaining, if nothing else.  Padilla throws a good fastball that sits around 93-94 to go with a 70 mph curve and, best of all, a 50 mph eephus pitch.  That’s correct ladies and gentlemen, Padilla will occasionally loft up a 50 mph offering in hopes of freezing the batter.  Hey, it worked beautifully against Mauer back in Padilla’s spring debut on March 5^th.  The biggest issue with Padilla, other than his age of 34, is that he has a bad attitude.  He lead the league in hit batsmen back in ’06 and his antics on the mound have started more than one fight.  Other than that, he’s had trouble staying healthy and has only started 16 games in the past two years.  Best case scenario?  He throws a 4.25 ERA, wins 10 games, and only starts one or two fights.  Hopefully with the Yankees.  For a 5^th starter, I’ll take that any day.

Junichi Tazawa:

AP Photo

An outside shot at the rotation, Tazawa, unlike the previous pitchers mentioned here, could actually be considered a prospect.  Dominating in the Japanese Corporate league after high school, Tazawa skipped the Nippon Professional Baseball draft in order to come directly to America and signed with the Sox at the tail end of 2008.  During the injury-plagued 2009 campaign, he went on to start a few games for the Sox, the highlight being six shutout innings against the Yankees with only two walks and two Ks on August 22.  Tazawa also made a few relief appearances last year, having missed all of 2010 after undergoing Tommy John surgery.  His stuff is promising, he throws a low nineties fastball, with fairly good command, an average curveball, a slider, and a forkball that can be devastating.  If Tazawa can stay healthy and avoid the Daisuke issue of nibbling at the plate, he can be an effective 5^th starter.  If not, it will be back to the minor leagues for some more seasoning, where he has performed very well thus far. He is, after all, only 25.

Felix Doubront:

(AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Last but not least is my favorite to make the rotation, Felix Doubront.  The Red Sox seem to like the cut of this tall left hander with the 94 mph fastball.  Doubront has shown promise; he posted a 4.32 ERA back in 2010 over 12 games including 3 starts and averaged a promising 8.3 strikeouts per nine innings.  Last year he met with a few hiccups in relief, ending with a 6.10 ERA, yet he only pitched 10.1 innings and if you take away the September 4 appearance against Texas, his ERA becomes 3.6.  Other than a good fastball, Doubront throws an impressive changeup and a curveball that is absolutely filthy when he can control it.  If Valentine is smart he’ll hang on to Doubront and if I were in charge he’d be my pick for the 5^th starter.  While Padilla might fare better, Doubront has more potential and is still only 24.  It’s hard to make a prediction for a guy who’s only made three career starts, but I firmly believe that if he becomes everything he can, he could one day be a solid 4^th or 5^th starter for the Red Sox.  Heck, he may even become a 3^rd starter one day.

Who knows?

Andrew Bailey:

We’ll start by examining the biggest player acquisition made this offseason. Bailey has the makings of an elite closer.  He won Rookie of the Year back in ’09 and was an All-Star in both 2009 and 2010.  His best pitch is his fastball, hands down.  It sits in the mid-to-upper 90’s, moves well, and he can put it wherever he wants.  Second is a low 90’s cutter that he often throws for the K.  Finally is a pretty good curveball that he uses mainly to keep hitters off balance.  At only 27, Bailey is one of the best young closers in baseball and should prove to be a force in the Boston bullpen.  The trick of course is staying healthy.  He has hit the disabled list more than once in his young career and for the Red Sox to get the stable closing presence they need, they are going to need him to stay off of it.  The second caveat is the man that Bailey is replacing.  Though he had rough patches last year, one Robert Andino comes to mind, Jonathon Papelbon was one of the best closers in baseball.  Can Bailey replace Papelbon?  That remains to be seen.

Mark Melancon: 

In another attempt to fix last year’s horrific bullpen, one of the first moves Ben Cherington made this offseason was trading Jed Lowrie for Houston’s closer, Mark Melancon.  Red Sox fans may remember Mark Melancon from his early days as “the next Mariano Rivera”, a title that has been given to just about every new Yankee reliever regardless of talent or experience.  Last year was Melancon’s first in the league fulltime, posting an impressive 2.78 ERA, 8.0 strikeouts per 9 innings, and a nice even 20 saves over 71 games.  He’s got a good fastball which hovers in the low to mid 90’s and a lot of movement, but where he really shines is his curveball.  He throws it in the low to mid 80’s and it is as good as anyone’s, a devastating out pitch.   Melancon, according to numerous scouting reports, also has a phenomenal pitcher’s makeup, meaning he’s confident and tough as nails.  If all goes well, the Melancon-Bailey combo could be one of the top in the AL.

Cody Ross: 

Anybody who followed the San Francisco Giants in their improbable rise to world champions 2 years ago knows the name Cody Ross.  His postseason performance, especially in the ALCS in which he hit .350 with 3 homeruns, 3 doubles, and 5 RBIs against some of the best pitchers in the game, was among the best in recent memory.  He’s not a star by any means, his best season was probably 2009 in which he hit .270 with 24 homeruns and a .790 OPS, but he’s a solid right handed hitter who has a penchant for coming up big in the clutch.  More importantly, Ross has grit.  He’s a scrappy, likeable guy who, by all reports is fitting in easily in the Red Sox clubhouse already.  He’s exactly what this team needs in the outfield, especially given last year, someone who will work for whatever he gets.  I am a big fan this signing.

Ryan Sweeney: 

The other player acquired by the Red Sox in the Josh Reddick trade is, in many ways the opposite his probable platoon partner, Cody Ross.  He’s 6’4 225 lbs to Ross’ 5’10 195 lbs.  He hits left, Ross hits right.  While Ross will surprise in spite of his smaller frame, the giant Sweeney’s season best homerun total is 6.  What Sweeney will do, however is hit for average with a nice career average of .283.  One thing Sweeney does have is potential.  He’s still only 27 and he was regarded as the best prospect in the White Sox farm back in ’07.  If the keen eyes of Bobby Valentine or Dave Magadan can tweak his swing to get more power out of that hitter’s build, he could become a force.  Remember, before he fixed his swing in 2010 the most home runs in a season Jose Bautista had ever hit was 16.  Not to say Sweeney will see that drastic of a jump at the age of 29 like we saw with Bautista, but you never know when something will click.

(Globe Staff Photo/Wendy Maeda)

Bobby Valentine:

I saved the best for last.  I am a big fan of Bobby V.  Following the collapse of the 2011 Red Sox and the very revealing interview of Jon Lester in which he stated that because Francona was so laid back the players took advantage of him, the owners went out and got the complete opposite to be the new manager of the 2012 team.  Critics will say that Bobby Valentine is a loud mouthed, egotistical, show off who will be very poor at handling his players and will be constantly offending and butting heads with his players.  They may be right.  Bobby is a bit of a narcissist; he’s gone so far as to claim he invented the wrap sandwich.   But what everyone can agree on is that he is one of the keenest minds in baseball today.  He can often detect flaws in the mechanics of pitcher and hitter alike and when he was an analyst for ESPN his comments were generally quite incisive and pointed.

While I loved Francona, I would peg him as the best manager in Red Sox history, it was a change that needed to happen.  Valentine is as different from Francona as it gets and already players are noting that the spring training drills and games all have a sense of urgency to them.  We won’t know if this is an effective coaching maneuver until the season starts.  Hopefully it will allow the Sox to avoid the slow start that has crippled them the past two years. But I like that he’s making them work.

There weren’t too many changes to the roster this year, but that’s a good thing.  As awful as 2011 ended, the Sox were the best team in the game from April 14^th to August 31^st.  The talent is still there.  The only thing they really changed up was the attitude.  And after last year, that’s what really needed a shake up.

The 2011 season was many things, a disaster, a lesson in the danger of hubris, one of the greatest collapses of all time, but more than anything else, it was a season of superlatives.

Picture the All-Star break. Jacoby Ellsbury, hitherto a nice average hitter and a threat on the base paths, has found his power stroke and is in the middle of what would become arguably the greatest season by a leadoff hitter of all time.  Adrian Gonzalez is the most dangerous hitter in baseball not named Jose Bautista.  Dustin Pedroia is even better than he had been in his MVP campaign on ’08.  David Ortiz has returned to form in a big way.  Josh Beckett and Jon Lester are both looking like viable CY Young candidates, and the Bard & Papelbon combo at the back end of the bullpen is untouchable.

This is a team destined for 100 wins.

Fast forward to September 28^th and there is a palpable feeling of despair.  The rotation has fallen apart.  Lester can’t throw a strike.  Beckett can’t throw anything except home runs.  Lackey can’t hold a lead.  And the last two spots in the rotation are held by a series of misfits including Tim Wakefield, Andrew Miller, and Kyle Weiland, none of whom are capable of winning a game.  The holes in lineup have become automatic outs.  The problems are too many to count on any given day.  The disappointing end of the season is both impending and inevitable.

On September 28^th, even after having the lead into the 9^th inning, when Robert Andino, a relatively unknown ballplayer, secured his place in Sox lore alongside Bucky Dent and Aaron Boone, it was merely a fulfillment of a prophecy we all knew was going to come true.  Nobody was really surprised that the Red Sox didn’t make the post season.  Though at one point it was an almost statistical impossibility, we all knew, deep down, that the Sox were destined for catastrophic failure.

If you took out that 2-10 start and looked at the team only from April 13^th to August 31^st, that team paced 106 wins.  Before and after that, they were one of the worst teams Boston has ever seen.  Last season was a season of superlatives, indeed.

Whether the collapse was because of chicken and beer, crushing expectations, or simply punishment from upon high from the ever spiteful baseball gods, the fact remains that 2011 was one of the worst catastrophes in the storied history of the Boston Red Sox.

But the bright side is that it’s now 2012.  While the American League is now a much more dangerous place to live (see: Pujols, Albert and Fielder, Prince) the Red Sox still have the talent they need to win.  The expectations are gone as are the fat cats,  either injured for the season or departed via free agency or retirement, these Red Sox are leaner and younger than last year’s edition.  They are humbled.  No longer is there bragging of 100 wins.  There is shame in the voices of the players.

Over the next few weeks, we will be covering the Red Sox spring training and all the recent developments with the team.  But the way the media still obsesses over the collapse begs to ask how many games into this season will the Sox start behind?  Zero.  That’s right.  2011 is completely gone from the standings.  Yet we must not forget that it remains in the minds of both the players and the fans.  Both are hungry for redemption and the road to it starts now.

And then something clicked.  The Sox took two of three from their arch nemesis, a move only Luxbet Sports Betting probably saw.  Dustin Pedroia and Jed Lowrie, the little engine that could and the unlikely hero, started carrying the offense.   Now the Red Sox begin to claw back to .500, only slightly higher than Lowrie’s batting average.

Not all is well quite yet for the club, however.  First is the catching situation.

Saltalamacchia seems incapable of handling Beckett and Matsuzaka.  His throwing is questionable, to put it delicately.  Varitek is old now and may as well just concede every stealing attempt the other team makes.  Both of the catchers look completely overmatched at the plate.

Carl Crawford also still worries me.  He seems to have started coming out of the slump over the past couple games with a homer amongst his four hits over the past two games.  Crawford has long been in the AL East, and he’s incredibly talented, so there’s no way this thing will go on for much longer, but we’ve seen him on the verge of a breakout before only to regress so I’m not going to crack the champagne just yet.

Finally, Adrian Gonzalez has had a rather mediocre start.  This has been largely forgotten in the storm of Crawford’s struggles, but Adrian is batting .280 as of last night with a measly single home run.  He’s better than this.  It may take him as while come out of this, he’s getting used to the big market of Boston, and the dominant pitching of the AL East, not to mention he’s coming off major surgery, but I have all the faith in the world that he’ll launching balls over the most with regularity any day now.

Yes, the Sox have one several games lately, and yes, the biggest problem, the rotation, seems to have come around beautifully.  But the fact of the matter is that until the Sox hit consistently with runners in scoring position, the catcher is able to throw out basestealers, and Crawford and Gonzalez live up to their expectations, this is only going to be a very good team. Not the great one they are capable of.

Josh Beckett made a loud statement yesterday.  He does not need any coddling.

Last night he absolutely dominated a stacked Yankees lineup going eight innings with 10 strikeouts and no runs.

He stepped up with a performance that the Boys from Boston sourly needed and gave the Red Sox a win, in spite of the efforts of very questionable second base umpire and an offense that seemed incapable of coming up with a big hit, Scutaro excepted.

Suddenly the talk of Boston has gone from gloom and doom to going forward.  There’s still plenty of season left and Beckett gave us something to look forward to.

Ignoring Lester’s valiant seven inning shutout, but failed effort to beat the Indians last week, the pitching staff has been an embarrassment in the first go round.  The Boston Phoenix wrote a rather scathing article before Beckett’s first start against the Indians in which the call into question Beckett’s reputation as an ace.

What has he ever really done to deserve that status?

Oh, right.

Last night he looked every bit the ace we once knew.  The curveball was the nastiest I’ve seen it since the postseason of ’07, breaking sharply and with perfect control.  The fastball was moving, popping, and most importantly, going exactly where Beckett wanted it.  And, oh yeah, the cutter and changeup looked good too.

Josh had a swagger and confidence to him that was remarkable, considering his first start where he was lit up by the meager Indians offense.   But he pitched like a man with something to prove.  He pounded the zone like he didn’t give a thought to any supposed danger from the man in the batter’s box.  He made a lot of good hitters look really bad.  He outdueled a man who won over 20 games last year.

He was the Beckett of old.

He was Beckett the ace.

He was exactly who we needed him to be.

We’ve contented ourselves with Celtics who seem to have collapsed on themselves following the trade deadlines, and the Bruins who perennially break our hearts.  But we diehards in the nation have been waiting with bated breath to hear the beautiful melody of Dirty Water once again.

The stories, passed on the breath of the media, tell of a team almost exploding with confidence.  There is talk of 100 win seasons, Cy Youngs, and possible MVPs.  Pedroia and Youkilis are healthy once more.  Ellsbury, last year’s prodigal Red Sock, is having a scorching spring.  Josh Beckett is apparently healthy and in shape, though the numbers he has put up so far might have you believe otherwise.  Carl Crawford, once an arch nemesis of Boston has joined forces, turning what last year was one of the worst outfields in baseball into one of the best in the game.  Perhaps most excitingly, Adrian Gonzalez, the man born for Fenway, has at long last come home to roost.

The bullpen is refitted with Jenks and Wheeler.  The competition for the last couple spots revealed more possible candidates than initially believed.  Denys Reyes and Matt Albers eventually upset the favored Hideki Okajima and Scott Atchison.

The rotation is healthy and hungry.  Jon Lester, in spite of being rocked yesterday, promises to be one of if not THE best pitcher in the AL.  Buchholz aims to build on a year that saw him go from an outside shot at the rotation to garnering Cy Young votes.  Josh Beckett is in great shape and looks to rebound from a lost season.  Lackey seeks to prove the worth of the mammoth contract he signed last season.  Daisuke Matsuzaka showed some very promising signs in the last few spring starts.  Will this be the year that he finally becomes the pitcher we were told he was back in ’07?

This is a team with only a few question marks.

This is a team with incredible potential.

There is no limit to what these 25 players are capable of.

One thing is sure, however… this is going to be a season to remember.

Among many headlines of that year was the race for the stolen base crown in the American league.  The two speedsters leading the pack were Boston heartthrob Jacoby Ellsbury and the fastest leftfielder in baseball, Carl Crawford.  The two were the stuff of nightmares for opposing teams.  Singles became doubles.  Doubles became triples.  Catcher’s looked like they risked dislocating their shoulder’s trying to throw them out.  Pitchers made wild throws in futile attempts to keep them on the bag.

It was a year of feats for the two outfielders.  On May 9th, Carl Crawford tied the record for stolen bases in a single game with six against a very frustrated Brad Penny.  I had the fortune, or misfortune I suppose, of being at the game.  The sense of despair emenating from Sox fans and the team was almost palpable whenever Crawford got on base.  By the sixth steal, the Boston fans present were stopped, even groaning.  Varitek may as well have been rolling the ball after Crawford.  With long, graceful strides and a running motion as fluid as water, Crawford was nothing short of unstoppable on the basepaths.  Tropicana Field thundered with his every step as he shot from first to second, then second to third.  His 60 steals that season were second only to Jacoby Ellsbury.

AP Photo/Winslow Townson

In just his second full year, Ellsbury had a massive 70 steals to lead the American League.  But none were more memorable than on April 29th when he executed one of the rarest and most exciting feats in all of baseball, a pure steal of home.

The pitcher was Andy Pettite and the catcher Jorge Posada, a tandem that has a long history of terrorizing Red Sox batters.

Ellsbury was on third and Drew was at the plate.

The defensive alignment the Yankees employed against the pull hitting Drew was such that the third baseman slid over to the shortstop position so nobody was holding Ellsbury on third.

When Pettite went into his windup…

Ellsbury shot off…

like a rocket.

Younger, less experienced, Ellsbury lacks the grace of Crawford, his sprint home was a stumbling bumbling affair in which he actually tripped a few feet short of home.  Yet, what he lacks in style he makes up for in raw speed.   When the umpire called safe at homeplate, the entire team exploded in celebration as Pettite yelled angrily for the ball.

When it was announced that the Red Sox had signed Crawford, the nation was still reeling from the Adrian Gonzalez trade.  It was an almost euphoric time in which we could not believe what we were hearing.  Certainly the Sox couldn’t have signed both Crawford AND Gonzalez.  That’s not how it goes in Boston, we always get jilted.  The papers must have mixed it up, Crawford must have signed with New York.

It was too good to be true.

But it was true!

This season the two greatest speed threats in the league have been joined on one team.  Speed, never before a great weapon of the Red Sox, has just become one of the top in their arsenal.  Should they be back to back in the order, double steals will become an almost daily occurance.  Nobody will be able to touch these two.  Crawford’s knowlege of stealing and Ellsbury’s pure speed will make for a few good headlines, to be sure. This lineup promises to be a pitcher’s worst nightmare.

Is it opening day yet?

The Red Sox land Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, pushing one of the most dangerous lineups in baseball through the roof.  The bullpen has been solidified with the aquisitions of Bobby Jenks and the toast of Warwick, Dan Wheeler.

Meanwhile, the Yankees were jilted by Cliff Lee.  See Yankee fans?  That’ll teach you for spitting on the wife of a player you want playing for you.  What goes around comes around.

The team looks good this year.  Especially in light of Tampa’s fall from grace and New York’s offseason issues, Boston seems to be the pick of the litter.  Yes, that’s right Wallace Matthews, I don’t care that the Yankees signed Soriano, the Sox are still the winners in this offseason. I’ll put that one in my online sportsbook now.

While he is certainly excellent, Soriano can’t possibly be a better setup man than Kerry Wood was during his stint in the Bronx last year.  Wood was untouchable with a 0.69 ERA and a 1.23 WHIP.  I’d like to see Soriano top that.

Matthews was quick to point that the Sox major aquisitions only improved the team’s greatest strength and didn’t address any of the weaknesses.  But the New York bullpen was one of the strongest in the league, so doesn’t the Soriano signing do the same?  Also, the Sox offense may have been one of the best, but it did so without three of its top hitters and with one of the worst outfields in baseball.  The tandem of Crawford and Gonzalez, matched with the return of Pedroia, Youkilis, and Ellsbury, looks to push the offense to stratospheric levels.

The signings of Jenks and Wheeler help to strengthen the greatest weakness of the Red Sox, the bullpen.  Last year it was Daniel Bard and Jonathon Papelbon and that was it.  When Scott Atchison was your third best pitcher out of the ‘pen, you knew something was wrong.  Jenks, like Papelbon had a rough season last year, but isn’t far removed from being one of the better closers in the AL.  Wheeler had a strong year last year for Tampa, posting a 3.35 ERA and should help those middle innings.

No moves were made to address the struggles of the rotation, but that can only be because nobody seriously believes that Lackey and Beckett will repeat such a poor performance.  Lackey was started off rather poorly but was at least consistent and almost always made it into the seventh.  Towards the end of the season, he seemed to pull it together a bit, posting a 3.73 in September.

Beckett in particular was a complete disaster, starting with a 4.2 inning, five run disaster against the Yankees on opening day.  There were bright spots, but overall it was one of the worst seasons of his career, posting a 6-6 record with a 5.78 ERA.  The only comparably bad season was 2006, his first with the Sox where he posted a 5.01 ERA.  But remember how he followed that up?  Oh yeah, 2007.  That was a pretty good year for him.

Theo Epstein believes that Daisuke Matsuzaka showed some very promising moments last year that signaled a strong 2011.  Even if Lester and Buchholz regress a bit, the rotation still should be one of if not the best rotation in baseball, though I believe the Phillies hold that title.

At least until opening day.

Should be a hell of a season.

Less than a month until Truck Day.