No Joy in Mudville

Normally I would save these kind of rants for the Boston Bruins (because the Bruins suck and they deserve to be blasted), but today the ire of the Chicks Dig McLovin blog is focused on a different Boston sports team.

The Boston Red Sox.

The Red Sox will not make the playoffs this year. Yes, I said that and I'll repeat it again.

The Boston Red Sox will not make the playoffs this year.

The Red Sox front office and ownership group should be bending over backwards and thanking Manny Ramirez for being a huge pain in the ass, because all of his distractions have kept the focus away from all of the shortcomings of this team (and there are many).

The lineup is too top heavy. There are 3 gimme outs everytime through the batting order, Catcher (Varitek-Cash), Center Field (Crisp-Ellsbury) and Shortstop (Lugo, Lowrie, Cora).

No depth in the starting rotation. Jon Lester has been 'THE MAN' for the Sox this year, and it's a good thing because Josh Beckett is not the same pitcher that we saw in 2007 and you're third-best starter, Dice-K pitches much better on the road than at Fenway (his ERA is 1.50 higher at Fenway than on the road) and averages only 5 innings a start. It's always an adventure when Tim Wakefield pitches and Clay Buchholz hasn't lived up to his potential.

Bullpen issues. There hasn't been a reliable bridge to Jonathan Papelbon all season. Craig Hansen, Manny Delcarmen, Javier Lopez, Hideki Okajima, Mike Timlin have all struggled.

All of those shortcomings lead to a 40-36 record against teams with winning records and a .500 record against teams in the AL East and West. They are 1-7 against the best team (right now) in baseball, the Angels. And the Angels just got a lot better with the addition of Mark Teixeira.

All the talk from the "so-called experts" on WEEI about them being the best team in the division and being a serious contender for another World Series title is laughable. Maybe trading Manny will give the Red Sox the kind of bump in performance that was gained in 2004 when Nomar Garciaparra was traded. This team needs something to serve as a wakeup call, a kick in the ass or however you want to put it.