Adrian Gonzalez

The good news is that all is right with the USS Pujols... 2 home runs in a Dodger crushing celebration last night means that the universe - at least the one that exists in the NL East and hits .300, 30, 100, and 100 is back on pace. He may only be up to .241 with 10 RBIs and 4 jacks, but he's hot again, and for that, life is good.
Ichiro was off to a little bit of a slump, but 2 more hits puts him at .276. Once again, life is good, and all is right with the highest paid (and most effective) singles machine in the history of baseball (though Pete Rose and Ty Cobb probably have something to say about that).
And while Baltimore losing is par for the course, Boston dropping to 2-10 with a loss against the Blue Jays is a crime against humanity.
So let's try to figure this out.
Carl Crawford's 0 for 5 drops him to .135. He's making $142 million over 7 years.
Jacoby Ellsbury's 1 for 4 raises him to .195. Coming back from injury, he was a question mark, but still... he's better than this. After all, he's batting .288 for a career.
Marco Scutaro goes 1 for 3 to raise his batting average to .188. Sure, he was the subject of a movie called Player to Be Named Later, and he did once hit a 3-run game winning home run against Mariano Rivera proving that the sun can shine on a sleeping dog's ass, but still... and he's making $11 million over 2 years AND HE SUCKS.
And Jarrod Saltalamacchia, the catching option that was supposed to be the good one since the other option, Jason Varitek, is headed for AARP, is hitting .154 this year. He hit .167 in 2 less at bats of an injured season last year, but Theo the wonder child and Francona the puppet boy thought that they could make something of the lad... but it didn't work. Sure, he's a bargain basement $750,000, but still... you think that he could at least make the Mendoza Line. Save 1 good 2 for 4 game against the Yankees, and this guy is outright ejected from the pros.
And just like we talked about rewarding pitchers who do nothing in Boston, now, the 0 for 4 night for Adrian Gonzalez (dropping him to .244 with 1 home run and 7RBIs) gets him $154 million over 7 years.
The message of rewarding greatness is understood, but if it's not happening this year, what does it really mean? Are we just trying to be the biggest payroll ever to miss the playoffs? Does it mean that Baltimore and the Blue Jays can quake at who finishes in third in AL East as the Red Sox look to move on without JD Drew and his 5 years $70 million after this year?
The free spending and day dreaming hopes of the Wonder Twins ensures that just as Zan and Jayna were the dumbest cartoon superheros ever, Terry and Theo are the most useless front office pair to ever steer a baseball ship. I know I said that I want my team to slump as low as they possibly can if it gets them fired, but I don't know how much more I can take of this disaster of a season. We're now officially 2 games behind Houston and Seattle who were both dead in the water before the season started. We're 7 games behind 2nd place Kansas City who was also marked for death. Even Pittsburgh who hasn't had a winning season since 1991 is 4 games better than us and their best players are looking for July trades as opposed to playoff dreams in western Pennsylvania.
What does it say? Worst baseball summer in Boston since 1960's 65 and 89? Even the futility of World War 2's player depletion in 1945 hasn't looked this bad - especially with a payroll of $160million.

John Axford

Ugly is as ugly does. We can start with normality and hope and all that is the beginning of a season. Just ask Lou Boudreau... "it's all future and no past on the first game of the season - unless your first game is a massive bed crapping that leads to the Reds winning not only that game, but the next 4 games. Eventually, their win streak was stopped at 5, but not before the guy who got it all going with a 3-run jack grounded out to end the game.
What a difference a week makes.
However, for Boston, the first week was all the same... crap, crap, and more crap from their big guns doing nothing to drive in runs and from their pitchers doing nothing to prevent runs from being driven in. As a result, the unthinkable was said, so if you felt a rift in the space time continuum, it was because I stated that I hoped that the Red Sox go 0-20... whatever it takes to get Terry Francona fired. And as they are playing the Yankees in New England this weekend, getting swept by the Yankees at home would go a long way to landing Terry Francona in a soup kitchen line. If he could take Epstein with him, we'd be willing to see the Red Sox turn into the Cleveland Spiders all over again (or worse).
Ugly is as ugly becomes.
Our continuing hatred towards Bleacher Report is about to get serious. Today, they continued the Ace Ventura talking out of their ass by suggesting that the Cardinals trade Albert Pujols. While it sounds like a good idea to get players, there's a little thing called "no trade clause," and for that and for being a reputable baseball website... we can only ask how BLEEPING stupid that they really are. Stick to wives and girlfriends slide shows, guys. Your baseball coverage sucks.
Perhaps, instead of talking about ugliness that results from a decision to try to replace Rollie Fingers as the man with the most unique facial hair ever, we should focus solely on positive stats and accomplishments like Nelson Cruz's 4 dingers in his first 4 games to show up as a latter day Mark McGwire / Willie Mays, but while there are crimes against common sense, there must be a different discussion. And to this, we note that there has been a return to ironic facial hair by some of the games "hipper" players (and their pathetically worthless unhip cousins), there is a reality that this isn't the 1970s, and this isn't Oakland and the Brewers aren't owned by Charles Finley, so... let's get with the world that is 2011.
And for that John Axford... damn, you are not a pretty man. Your pitching isn't much prettier, but despite a crappy opening day, you've racked up 2 saves and dropped your season ERA to 10.80, which is the result of one bad game, but still... you're not the man I would want closing my games.
With that being said, it's only a matter of time until the Red Sox pick him up to stem the flood of runs that are coming in to devastate Boston's season and to have them end up in last place.
Good thing that misery loves company, and it loves it all the more with a Red Sox reject leading the charge against futility.

Terry Francona

While I watched a little bit of the Giants vs. the Dodgers on Thursday, I hadn't really gotten to truly sit down and watch baseball until last night. Unfortunately, being a Boston fan, my worst fears were realized as the Red Sox pitching was taken to the woodshed like a red-headed stepchild on a Sunday afternoon. Wacky Lackey let up 9 runs in less than 4 innings to a Texas team that just slams the ball around with total disregard for whatever pre-season rank that the team that they are playing against is supposed to have. Sure, Nelson Cruz, Josh Hamilton, Ian Kinsler, Adrian Beltre, and Michael Young (not playing yesterday) can really drive the ball, but Elvis Andrus was even 3 for 5. Yorvit Torrealba had a home run, and before it was done, the game was 12-3, though Jacoby Ellsbury had his first long ball since 2009 (he was out all of 2010).
And in the end, the decisions of Terry Francona ALWAYS come back to haunt the team. In the 4th inning, he walked Hamilton to load the bases for Beltre, and WHAM! (an excellent expression of onomatopoeia if ever there was one), grand slam and the Ballpark at Arlington is screaming and it's a celebration that Kool and the Gang would be proud of (because they are celebrating good times in Texas - it's not like the days of 3 and done in the division series against the Yankees as Juan Gone and Pudge aren't enough against the Yankees in da Bronx and there are no Texas pitchers who can withstand whatever onslaught is brought out against them.
This Texas team is for real, and Boston, while only 2 games in, is suffering from what I knew they would - a better pitching staff on paper than in reality.
The night before, Jon Lester gave up 3 home runs for the first time in his career. Mike Napoli and Kinsler each had one, and Nelson Cruz hit the first of his two home runs, so he's off to another sick OPS early season - as long as he doesn't get hurt.
Today is Clay Bucholz, who does have an upside, but as the week progresses, we get to wonder which Josh Beckett we'll see. I don't know if I believe in him. I do know that I have from time to time, but I don't go into the game easy - it's not as bad as the Daisuke adventure experience that sees a pitcher able to throw 150 pitches a game - mainly because he throws so many damn outside pitches that do result in walks or near walks. It's also not the knuckle ball of Tim Wakefield that baffles some hitters and leaves others (Cruz) to deposit it far behind the outfield wall. It's a pitcher who has been figured out and injured and beaten. For all of the heroics, there are too many questions.
And for that, it's hard to have a leader who sits calm in the dugout doing what Theo tells him. A man who is still around because Curt Schilling wanted him there and he's still there because Boston happened to win it all in 2004 and 2007, much the same was as Ozzie Guillen is because he won for the first time since 1919 when he took his title in 2005.
Sure, it's nice to see Big Sluggi hit a home run in both his first and second game so we don't have to wait forever for him to get started offensively. Sure, he hit a home run last year on April 23rd, but he was sub Mendoza until May 10. The year before, his first home run came May 20th, but he didn't press so hard and he was over Mendoza for good on April 20th. A notoriously slow starter, David Ortiz has seen better days, and once again, he's someone whose personality exceeds his current abilities. But that said, people not named Terry Francona are wising up to it. he's also looking pathetic in striking out (twice already - it's not the league lead - 5 - but it's not a good sign when he can't see how over the plate his called whiffs are). Jay Z for one is not putting up with the Sluggster stealing his intellectual property.
And this is not to say that David Ortiz wasn't once the hero, but it is saying that he didn't deserve an All Star appearance last year - hell, he didn't deserve a thank you contract in 2011. He needs to retire to greener pastures and get on with phase 2 of his adult life.
But that would involve a certain manager who can't make his own decision benching him.
And if that manager can't keep big name pitchers who have seen better days not getting huge contracts and not getting new life blood into the Boston pitching staff, you can bet that it's going to be a long season.

Adrian Gonzalez

For the past few years, we have been inundated with discussion on the trade possibility of Adrian Gonzalez who seemed to have a ton of upside since he was allegedly playing in a park as big as the one that Willie Mays yanked Vic Wertz's flyball out of the sky in, but let's be honest 396 to center is not 483 feet, but then again, Fenway is a more intimate affair, so that's a plus for his statistics now that the trade is in the books, the hope is in the fans, and the man is in full PR mode.
So the great white hope pulled a .298, 31, 101 line last year knowing that what he did was going to help both the Padres win the division (of course, they imploded in the last few weeks, which was still a feat considering that other than Gonzalez and pitching, they really didn't have much last year) and help himself win a contract with another team.
So let's be honest with that line... there are 2 years in his career with more home runs (he did hit 40 once) and he did bat 300 once (304), but we're looking at good value (under $5million) for what seems to be about $15million of production in baseball money (which is less real than the leprechauns dancing under rainbows, Sasquatch sightings, and Loch Ness Monster pictures).
His whiffs are down a little bit, but he's not getting 600 at bats (almost, but not quite) either like he was in those 140 K years.
In his year in the playoffs, he was 5 for 14, so that bears well, but can he handle the Boston media? San Diego is a friendly town that isn't quite so media "intense" as Boston. How will he react to the big games against the Yankees? Can he meet expectations?
Gonzalez now stands on first base and moves Youkilis to third, which moves Mike Lowell to improving his golf game. Back in the day, Mike Lowell was a hero (as recently as the 2007 World Series), but then he got old, and the Red Sox wanted to jettison him to anyone who would have his memories as modern hopes, but the physicals that he took to reveal the damage of a career in baseball kept him and his salary in Boston. He hobbled through, a warrior to the end in spite of Theo Epstein's business approach to baseball in Boston (the same thing that sent famed Idiot Kevin Millar packing instead of making him a bench coach). The same approach that allows Jason Varitek's memories to stay at a discount for another year instead of making him a bench coach. The same approach that broke Dave Roberts' heart when it brought it to Boston just long enough to steal the base that made him as heroic as Paul Revere only to spit on it by sending him away the next year. If there's not enough hate for Theo Epstein here, give me some time. I'll get to all of the reasons why he and Francona need to go - in spite of what they did for 2004 and 2007. There's a year; it will all come out in the wash.
Baseball in Boston (and St. Louis, for that matter) is a beautiful thing; however, I don't have to like the whole team, and I especially don't have to like the team's management.