They Are What They Are

My father would always say the same thing to me when we were watching Derek Lowe c. 2003 -- "he is what he is," he'd say. His subsequent efforts in the postseason notwithstanding, what Lowe was (and is, at least roughly, with a career record of 146-120) was a .500 pitcher.

In some ways, being a .500 player or team is to be as Derek Lowe was -- showing flashes of brilliance, then reverting to Meltdown Mode. If he could just be the No-Hitter, Bite-My-Tweeter Derek Lowe all the time, you'd think. If he could just stop running into that one bad inning.

Enter the 2010 Red Sox. Flashes of brilliance, blowing out the Tigers on the road in the opening game of the series, with 450 foot dingers by Big Papi and a 6-run scoring differential...followed by what we've seen the last two days, disconcerting backslides into squandered starts, bullpen ineffectiveness and run-scoring opportunities left on base.

It would be simpler in some ways if the Sox were just plain bad this year. Instead, I suspect this is how it may be for the rest of the summer campaign -- rising hopes, cresting and breaking into that trough of disillusionment again. Tobin Bridge jumpers will line up after series against the Rays and Yankees, continue calling for Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester to be traded for Adrian Gonzalez, a batboy and a bucket of baseballs, call for David Ortiz's tarring and feathering on Boston Common, pine for the days when we had Manny Ramirez's bat and all its concomitant problems in the lineup.

Polyannas will snort and eyeroll at the pathalogical pessimism of the nay-sayers and congratulate themselves on their superior fandom and attitude toward the team, but they'll have a tough argument to make against games like Saturday's, in which multiple offensive opportunities are squandered and the bullpen weakens, weakens, and then finally breaks in a final humiliation to the tune of walking in the winning run in the bottom of the twelfth. Great teams, even good teams, don't do that kind of thing, or at least not with the disconcerting regularity the 2010 Red Sox have. 

But the rub is, it's really not so bad...it's just mediocre.There will be this sine-wave pattern of ups and downs, but in the end, the median is showing no signs of wavering. They are what they are -- a .500 team -- and my prediction is that there won't be any getting around it this year.