I Think the Red Sox Have Ebola

I earlier blamed this on The Galdstoner. While I am not yet ready to notify the authorities, I will still not retract that statement until given proof. Anyway, regardless of who is to blame, the result is obvious. I present to you the Red Sox starting lineup from last night:

Crisp CF
Cora SS
Loretta DH
Youkilis LF
Hinske RF
Lowell 3B
Lopez C
Pena 1B
Pedroia 2B

Gabbard SP

That's right! Loretta and Youkilis are the new Ortiz and Manny. Oh, I recall those heady days when Tom Brunansky, Jack Clark, and Ellis Burks held down the middle of the order.

A grand total of 4 regulars starting the game. Four. And two are out of position. Three others in there are backups for the injured backups (Carlos Pena, Lopez and the fact that Hinske is in RF)! The sad thing is that the offense has been the only reliable part of this team. That is not to mention that Gabbard should be like 8th or 9th on the depth chart for starting pitchers. Kyle Snyder, who I guess is #7 if Gabbard is 8 or 9 (where does Jason Johnson fit in? David Pauley? - Christ.), started the day before and tonight they are starting a minor leaguer that they just picked up, called Mike Burns. Oh joy.

Well, Varitek and Nixon are supposed to be coming back this weekend, which probably won't help much, since there's no reason to expect that they'll come back playing very well (right away at least). Wakefield should also be back soon, and that should help. Who knows about Manny and Ortiz (maybe it's the taurine in his Vitamin Water throwing his heartbeat off).

But the point is teams just don't collapse like this. And I'm not even talking about playing poorly, I mean physically collapse. These are the Pawtucket Red Sox right now letting the East slip away, not the Boston Red Sox. In fact, if Trot and Tek go on rehab assignments this week, then the Pawsox will be fielding almost as many Red Sox regulars as the Bosox did last night.

And Yankee fans complained when Matsui and Sheffield went down. HA!