It didn't take us Sox fans long to bang our heads. Mike Cameron provided plenty of that before the Sox had lost most of its guts by mid-summer. Then the drama with Jacoby Ellsbury took the rest of the summer along with the losses of Youk and Pedey. Josh Beckett was barely on the mound and when he was, wasn't very effective. John Lackey was the biggest bust the Sox have spent on in years(even despite the wasted signing of Carlos Delgado who never saw the light of the majors). Dice-K continued his streak of inconsistency( please trade him) from the 2008-2009-2010 season. I'm still unsure if I should hate Bill Hall, but it's looking like he won't be back next season from the rumblings I've heard. We saw the end of a fine career by "Iron" Mike Lowell and quite possibly the final time for Jason Varitek. I don't even wanna talk about Paps, let's just leave it at that.
The silver lining is in all..could you ask for better performances by Jon Lester(who should be the AL Cy Young winner) or Clay Buchholz? Everytime they took the mound, RSN smiled with joy and on the offensive side hoped to see Beltre or a revived Ortiz go long over the Monstah. Marco Scutaro wasn't bad either(which I had really doubted him along with Lackey). The cast of characters in the OF (Nava, McDonald, Kalish, Drew) gave us a break when we we're hurting and helped us win some games. Best of all though, we gave the Yankees and Rays a run for their money until the bitter end.
2011 will be much different. Catcher has yet to be decided with Victor Martinez seemingly inching closer to FA, Varitek may not be back and Saltamacchia was just re0signed to a minor league deal. The power will return to the Sox line-up with healthy Ellsbury's, Youk's, and Pedroia's. Missing from this maybe Adrian Beltre who hits the open market and will sign somewhere else. Who knows though? Werth or Crawford could be in the cards for us. The Sox will need to re-build the bullpen, which was a glaring weakness and decide if Jonathan Papelbon can be trusted to close em out. Here's to 2011!
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