What's that smell?

I’m not sure when I got the whiff of 2006 wafting over to me from Fenway but it was at least a couple of weeks ago. Since then quite a few people have chimed in about the eerie similarities between this Red Sox season and that debacle from three summers ago. Well, why not me? Everyone enjoys a good piling on from time to time…and if you see any factual inaccuracies in here, well…my bad, since this was written off the cuff past midnight after an extremely long weekend. Please feel free to drop me a dime; I can take the criticism.

At least you have your health…

This is one banged up team right now - so banged up that Victor Martinez is part of it. Sure, he'll mash...but he's a defensive house of horrors. The last thing this crew needs is to play extra outs. If Varitek and Lowell weren't as hurt/banged up as they are, Justin Masterson is still eating at least a fair amount of innings for this crew in some way or another, which is exactly what the Sox lack right now. The pen is under a serious stress test right now, which almost never ends well. When you have exactly two members of your starting rotation reliably providing 6 innings of work each time out and are eagerly anticipating the second coming of Paul Byrd, you're not where you expected to be. Let's not forget the gaping crater of a roster spot that is Takashi Saito.

…or your depth? Try again…

Major-league-almost-ready position player depth is sorely lacking in Pawtucket and Portland. Really don't have any bench to speak of, either. And there's that shortstop deal. Hurt or not, Jed Lowrie looked like a heaping dessert helping of cowpie at the plate across the board when on the 25-man roster and there's more than enough film on Nick Green to pitch to him and it shows. He looks wretched at the plate...sort of like the AAA/AAAA player that he is.

Bullpen in a china shop

Papelbon will be rusty the next time he throws 'cause they haven't been able to get to the guy a whole lot lately. More extra pitches for him. Bard, for all his heat, doesn't have a whole lot of movement on it. Straight 99mph gas is still straight. He's got that nasty breaking ball but needs to set it up a little better. A 2-seamer or a cutter would be something I'd like to see more of, but that'll take some time.

Meeting expectations

So you basically have 5 or 6 members of your 25-man roster performing in pretty much good health and at the level they need to: Youk, Beckett, Lester, Pedroia (more or less, probably a little less), Ellsbury (sort of) and Bard (tonight's outing excepted). Pretty much any excuse you can use to sit Big Papup right now (lefty starter and even righties with poor history) and DH Martinez, you go for it.

Oh, that would be me…I’ve been swimming in raw sewage…I LOVE IT!

One of my favorite quotes from the Naked Gun series (2½)…almost right up there with “The truth hurts, doesn't it, Hapsburg? Oh sure, maybe not as much as landing on a bicycle with the seat missing, but it hurts!” It may not be as bad as 2006…or raw sewage even…but it's definitely getting a vaguely familiar stench. Sort of like beef fat tossed in the garbage can that sits in the hot sun for 4 days.