Red Sox promises

Again (sigh!), Boston looks good enough to win it all

ATLANTA -- It's late June, closer to July, really, and the Boston Red Sox are still in first place in the American League East.

You can almost smell the anxiety building in New England.

Like no other team in sports -- or at least no other team outside of Wrigley Field -- the Sox have that effect on their fans. They make sweet noises, they promise, they tease, they coo, they get you all worked up … and then they dump you.

Heartbreak is a chronic disease in Red Sox Nation. You're not a Sox fan, in fact, if you don't feel every palpitation, every up, every disastrous down before the Sox inevitably break your heart again.

Will this year be different? Isn't that always the question?

The Sox, because they're who they are, say it will be. They don't acknowledge the past. Nineteen eighteen means nothing to them. This is a new year. This is a new team. We promise. Tease tease, coo coo.

"You can have a good month or so," Derek Lowe, the closer turned starter said Sunday after manhandling the hottest team in the other league, the Atlanta Braves. "But 2 ½, 3 months … I think you see what you're going to get."

What Boston fans have now is a team that is playing well. Again. Better, in fact, than any. The Red Sox have the best record in baseball. They have the best pitching staff in the AL (a 3.65 ERA) and the best-hitting lineup in the game (.285).

They are in first place despite their ace, Pedro Martinez, being somewhat under 100 percent. They are in first place without slugger Manny Ramirez and reliever Rich "El Guapo" Garces, both still fighting their way back from injuries.

They are in first place because of a new ownership group and a new player-friendly manager and some wonderful starts by Shea Hillenbrand and Johnny Damon and John Burkett and Lowe and Nomar Garciaparra.

These are the new Sox. Trust them. Really.

"We've got a team that's 20 games over .500," skipper Grady Little, a breath of fresh air in Boston, said last weekend. "We're kind of getting the feeling that we can win anytime we take the field."

If you look at this team, it's easy to think that way. Damon is off to a wicked start (.331), and he usually only gets better as the year wears on. Garciaparra, out most of last year with a bad wrist, is back to his pre-injury All-Star form (he's hitting .326). Hillenbrand is suddenly patient. When Ramirez returns, soon, he'll boost that big-hitting lineup.

Derek Lowe AP

Then you have Martinez, still the best right-hander in the AL, with a 7-2 record and 3.18 ERA. There's Lowe (11-2, 1.85) with a nasty sinker and a no-hitter this season. There's Burkett (7-2, 3.99), who is starting to get healthy.

Plus -- and this is big -- the Red Sox are willing to spend to keep up with the Yankees. The Red Sox are talking trades, with a lot of teams, for pitching.

OK, so they haven't found any trades they like. Still, interim general manager Mike Port figures something will happen before the July 31 deadline.

"But this thing is not terribly broken," Port warns. "You have to be careful how you try to fix it."

There are signs, too, that the inevitable pain lurks. When you've lived with heartbreak for more than eight decades, there are always signs.

The Diamondbacks swept the Sox in a three-game series in Fenway earlier this month. The Sox have lost six of their last nine. Martinez may be hurt. It's all so unnerving.

But every time the Sox have looked ready to give it up, they haven't. Somebody gets a crucial hit. Someone pitches a beauty. The slide stops before it begins.

"When you have five [good] guys out there [in the starting rotation]," Lowe says, "one of them's going to pitch well. So you'll never go on too long of a losing streak."

Boston hasn't lost more than three straight games, and the Sox have done that only once (to the Diamondbacks). Last weekend, the Sox lost the first two in Atlanta, then Lowe shut down the Braves, 6-1. The Sox enter Tuesday's game 1½ games ahead in the AL East.

They've been in first place every day since April 15, they're off to their best start in 56 years but, still, in Red Sox Nation, the questions are there. There's that gnawing anxiety.

Is this the year?

Trust us, they say.

John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.

Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.

 

Related information

Multimedia

Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video