Getting round to the Red Sox

I really haven't written much about the Red Sox for a while - not really sure why, but I would put it down to the combination of events associated with Theo's departure, the Jed and Ben day's, the Beckett trade, the Renteria trade, Damon's defection / betrayal (you choose) and Theo's eventual return - none of these events interfered with my sense that the club was still headed in the right direction. When Theo arrived, he claimed that the mission was to turn the Red Sox into a $100m, player development machine - nothing that has happened this off-season has changed that mission.

And then as Spring Training arrived, the full team was really only in camp for a couple of weeks before the participants in the WBC departed - and here we are with a couple of weeks to Opening Night (the first opening night in three years that won't involve our Sox) and the full team still isn't in camp, and ST which is essentially meaningless in a win / loss kind of way, is even more meaningless in terms of trying to get a feel for how the season will go.

The problem with (normal) ST is that players that will influence the season are mostly gone by the 3rd inning in week 1, by the 4th inning in week 2, and even now if they are still in there by the 5th / 6th, you get the feeling they are being punished for something! Clearly part of that is getting a look at players - particularly pitchers from outside the organization, but as a guide to the season...

The Sox record in ST so far:

Date	Opp.	‘MLB’ Score	Final Score
02-Mar	MIN	0-4	3-6
04-Mar	PIT	1-3	6-7
05-Mar	MIN	0-1	1-5
06-Mar	TAM	0-5	8-7
07-Mar	BAL	5-2	10-6
08-Mar	FLA	1-3	1-12
09-Mar	LAD	0-5	4-6
	W-L-T	1-6-0	2-5-0
10-Mar	PHI	2-0	9-4
11-Mar	PIT	4-4	7-10
12-Mar	MIN	2-5	3-6
13-Mar	LAD	1-0	5-7
14-Mar	CIN	4-5	7-9
15-Mar	BAL	1-2	1-3
16-Mar	TAM	2-4	2-7
16-Mar	MIN	2-1	4-3
	W-L-T	3-4-1	2-6-0
17-Mar	FLA	5-0	5-5
18-Mar	TOR	5-2	8-4
Overall	W-L-T	6-10-1	5-11-1

So, the Sox Major League roster is... just as bad as the rest! Well, clearly the loss of Timlin, Varitek and Ortiz (and essentially Manny for the first week or so) accounts for part of it, but still... so what? Does it really tell us anything? Particularly at this stage? Particularly without those three players?

It really doesn't - players are just finding their swing, building strength, working on new pitches... fans should just be working on tans... or frostbite today if you are in, or north of, NY.

Over the next few days I will take a look at the Sox roster, and how they have performed between ST and the WBC - but lets be honest - history may not be an indicator of future performance, but then neither is ST.