Two hours after the game, I found myself browsing through the archives. I'm having trouble mustering the strength to write about this team. My interest level in the Sox is waning severely right now. I guess I was searching for my own reactions to similarly mediocre starts in each of the last two seasons.
Answer: I railed against the '07 club, convinced they were bad in spite of their winning record. (Yeah, they had a winning record into May.) I wasn't nearly as harsh in '08, just disappointed they could have a working margin on such a poor division.
This year, I can hardly muster any emotion.
I didn't expect the Sox to be good this season; or rather, I didn't expect them to win the division again. Their off-season trades added zero major league talent to the roster while subtracting two key productive players, a genuine minus two (-2) on the Phil Rogers scale.
While I agree with Ozzie, they're not as bad as the '07, a few injuries could change that assessment in a hurry.
Anyway, in my venture through the archives I turned up this entry following a bad game by Gavin Floyd from exactly one year ago.
Floyd ha[s] gone 12 consecutive starts without looking like doody. And if that's as often as we have to see the Philly Gavin, well, the Sox have found something better than a 5th starter.
I wish we could say the same this year. Floyd has taken the mound 7 times, and "looked like doody" in 5 of those games. He's very much the same pitcher the Sox called up in '07. He's either afraid of the zone or just has no idea how to throw a quality strike early in the count.
I don't have the stomach to go back through the gamelog and count how many batters Floyd fell behind. His control/approach was in stark contrast to that of Carl Pavano, who threw first-pitch strikes to the first 14 batters he faced (Maybe more. I'm not counting. Jim mentioned while I was still paying attention in the gamethread.)
Mental note: I have to start taking notes during the game. If it seems like this post is lacking in specifics it's because I honestly don't remember much of the game.
I suppose that's a blessing in disguise.