Price is Wrong for the Red Sox

Add the Tampa Bay Rays to the list of teams that now have a better record than the Boston Red Sox. All the hoopla and fanfare that surrounded this team over the winter has quickly turned to doubt and disbelief after the first eleven games this spring.

The Red Sox offense struggled mightily once again, and although David Price is one of the best young pitchers in the game, Boston continued to fail to take advantage of hitting with runners in scoring postion. This is a facet that has haunted them all year long and they now find themselves batting under .200 as a team in those situations and at the bottom of the basement in the AL East standings.

Further signs of the offensive ineptitude of the Sox, the only two runs scored in the game were produced by bench players Darnell MacDonald and Jed Lowrie. Collectively, the Red Sox only managed to scrape together five hits. They are batting .230 as a team and have hit a meager seven home runs through eleven games. That is tied for 22nd in the league -- not exactly tearing the cover off the ball for a team many predicted to score 1,000 runs.

On the other hand, Jon Lester pitched farily well. He fell victim to poor luck more than poor pitching in the fifth inning in which he gave up all three of the runs he allowed. Tampa strung together two ground ball singles and a bloop liner to start the inning. A weak grounder to first allowed the runner from third to beat the force-out throw to home by the narrowest of margins.

Then, a familiar face to Fenway, Johnny Damon, hit a RBI ground-ball single into left center to finish off the scoring for the inning. Lester certainly pitched well enough to win as he did not allow an extra-base hit over the seven innings pitched. Yet, the Boston ace still has not logged his first win of the 2011 season.

The Red Sox only have one regular batting over .300 so far this year (Dustin Pedroia), and the disappointment and frustration being voiced by a passionate Boston fan base is now evident in players' reactions and body language on and off the field. With all the talent up and down the lineup it's really only a matter of time before there is a reversal of fortune. The question at that point, however, will be whether or not the Sox have dug themselves into too big of an early season hole to crawl out of.

In an effort to try and avoid a three-game sweep by the Rays at home, the Red Sox will send Clay Buchholz, with his 7.20 ERA and .325 BAA, to the mound on Wednesday. Perhaps his newly signed $30M contract will be incentive to provide the Red Sox with a gem. The way Boston's offense is going, they may need him to pitch his second no-hitter to have a shot. Maybe that's exactly what they need to spark the club. While it shouldn't take that, I guess at this point, we'll take whatever we can get.