Kuzul

Jacoby Ellsbury has spent the majority of the season in a handful of very specific places: Arizona, the disabled list, the doghouse of a rabid Boston media.

Everywhere but on the field.

So when Ryan Kalish trotted out to center this weekend in Texas following Ellsbury’s latest appearance on the disabled list, there was reason to believe he was auditioning for more than just a roster spot in 2011.

Is Red Sox Nation looking at its starting centerfielder for the foreseeable future?

This is a prickly question. For one, Ellsbury is a rare and unique talent whose skill set hasn’t graced the Red Sox outfield very often over the year. Giving up on him so quickly would seem a rash judgment.

And Kalish has admittedly played extremely well since being called up, but the sample size is far too small. The name Phil Plantier pops into my mind as an outfielder that burst on the scene impressively toward the end of a campaign and fizzled almost as quickly and spectacularly.

But one has to wonder if Kalish is being given a test by Red Sox management: Ellsbury’s done for awhile, so let’s see how the kid does out there.

Of course, Red Sox management is the wild card in this whole equation. Ellsbury has been getting ripped in the Boston media since April, perhaps rightfully so in some cases. His trip to Arizona to recover was puzzling, his extended rehab time even more so. After all, the guy was clubbing the ball for almost a week at Pawtucket before he returned to the lineup. Dustin Pedroia could barely stand to sit in the McCoy Stadium dugout for two days before clearing himself fit to play.

Ellsbury’s teammates have even questioned his motives, with Kevin Youkilis and Jon Lester both publicly wondering why the center-fielder was gone for so long.

Through it all, the media has assumed upper management was growing tired of Ellsbury’s act and a rift was expanding between the two sides. But nobody from the front office has given any indication one way or another, and why would they? It does nobody any good to comment publicly on the matter.

But that’s why the situation is so intriguing. It could be that management looks at this as a lost season in what should prove to be a very successful career. Perhaps they still view Ellsbury as the starting center-fielder for the next decade or more.

But it’s also possible that the Sox are test-driving Kalish in center to see if they like the ride. If he performs well enough down the stretch—during the heat of a pennant race, for bonus points—do the Sox cut ties with Ellsbury and shop him this summer? He would no doubt bring a solid return, and if the team is truly disillusioned with him, that may not be such a silly route to take.

Let the record state that this observer wouldn’t move Ellsbury just yet, unless he was an attractive enough piece to kick-start the Adrian Gonzalez trade machine again. Otherwise, I think he has too much talent to sell for pennies on the dollar.

But the simple truth of the matter—despite all the blabbering on TV and the radio—is we really don’t know. We won’t know how the Sox brass feels about Ellsbury until the off-season, when he’s either declared the center-fielder again or put on the trading block.

What we do know right now is that Ryan Kalish is the current center-fielder for the Boston Red Sox. Given that less than a month ago he was just another prospect in the minors, that’s some remarkable progress.

It’s also an intriguing opportunity for the youngster. If he puts enough of an imprint on the position in the last month-and-a-half of the season, the spot could be his for a long time to come.

After all, we know where Jacoby Ellsbury has been all summer long. Where he is next year remains the question.

And the answer may be taking shape before our eyes.

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Tony Massarotti said on the radio in Boston this week that the baseball season, for all intents and purposes, doesn’t begin until August 15. The Boston Red Sox are inclined to believe that logic, given that much of what happened leading up to this month has been relatively forgettable.

A remarkable rash of injuries, silence at the trading deadline, wildly inconsistent performance. And yet, here they stand, just four games out of the Wild Card after taking two of three from the Toronto Blue Jays this week.

And with August 15 right around the corner and plenty of dates on the calendar remaining with both the division-leading New York Yankees and Wild-Card leading Tampa Bay Rays, somehow, a playoff berth remains within their grasp.

They still have the toughest uphill climb in the American League East, though, and it isn’t going to be easy, especially with Kevin Youkilis gone for the year to a thumb injury in perhaps the most devastating of all the wounds.

But with August 15 right around the corner and the final six weeks of the season upon us, it’s time to dissect just how—and how not—the Red Sox could find their way into the postseason. So here are three reasons why the Red Sox could reach the postseason, and three reasons they may not.

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When Dustin Pedroia went down with a broken foot in San Francisco and a diagnosis of six weeks off, all of Red Sox nation quickly plucked the calendar off the wall and thumbed through to the beginning of August.

The math brought you right to this weekend’s series with the Yankees, providing a glimmer of hope that the spark-plug second baseman could return in time to help save the season.

Unfortunately, Kevin Youkilis’ thumb had other ideas.

Youkilis tore a muscle in his thumb this week, and will require season-ending surgery.

Never before has such a phrase been more fitting. Youkilis’ surgery will almost certainly end this season.

For the Red Sox.

Boston has survived a remarkable rash of injuries with impressive performances up and down the roster and downright uplifting debuts from the likes of Darnell McDonald, Daniel Nava and, most recently, Ryan Kalish (who appears to be carving himself a spot on the roster for the next several seasons).

But the team remains more than five games out of a playoff spot, despite treading water at a rate sure to make any lifeguard gush. Victor Martinez returned to provide some punch, but with both Youkilis and Pedroia out of the lineup right now and the prospect of Youk being gone until next March, things are looking remarkably bleak.

The Sox were having a hard time making up ground with Youk in the lineup. With him on the shelf, it becomes a near impossible task. Thankfully the Red Sox botched the Mike Lowell situation so badly they still had him lying around, and he’ll be an acceptable replacement at the dish. But nobody can bring the combination of offensive and defensive prowess Youkilis possesses, and his infectious fire will be even harder to replace.

Youkilis has quietly turned himself into one of the best players in the league. He can play two positions at a Gold Glove level, can hit just about anywhere in the lineup—including the cleanup spot, which he has manned well all year—and will generally finish in the .300-30-100 range.

And he’s also proven to be remarkably durable. He rarely misses time, and the first prolonged stretch without him in the starting lineup is going to be a painful test for the Sox.

It’s been a bizarre season for the Sox, one that has drawn repeated comparisons to the 2006 campaign that saw a rash of injuries, few reinforcements at the trading deadline and a pair of devastating injuries to Jason Varitek and Jonathan Papelbon that ruined things down the stretch.

Those comparisons continue this weekend. It was in August of 2006 that the Yankees strode into Fenway Park and streamrolled their way to a devastating and now infamous five-game sweep that put the lights out.

The Yankees have a chance to do the same this weekend.

And even if the series doesn’t result in a sweep, the Sox are going to have to come up with something of a miracle to avoid fading to black again.

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Daniel Nava? Darnell McDonald? Felix Doubront? Household names all, thanks to a wild and bizarre first half of the season that has seen the Boston Red Sox go from floundering to flying to floundering again. The Sox have dealt with a remarkable rash of injuries and yet received critical contributions from sources both expected and very unexpected, and somehow stand just five games back of the Yankees at the break.

Boston fans have gone from the lows of an April and May that featured a fading David Ortiz and frustrating losing streaks that dug a sizable hole to the highs of a June that vaulted the Sox back into contention, within a half-game of first place at one point. And they are now dealing with the question marks of July, as the Sox stumbled into the All-Star break continuing to deal with injuries while fading back to five games out.

So how did the first half break down, really? Not at all like anyone expected. A team built on run prevention has indeed prevented very few runs, but produced more than its fair share. And with the All-Star game just a day away, the first-half report card is officially in.

Leave an apple on the desk in the morning.

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The Boston Red Sox will return to the site of their last World Championship tonight to open a set with the Colorado Rockies, and they will do so without the services of J.D. Drew, who was apparently placed on the disabled list today after tweaking a hamstring last week.

Consider that “the other shoe.”

Admit it, you’ve been holding your breath like the rest of the Red Sox fan base. Outfielders have been dropping like flies—one might be able to bring Adrian Beltre up on serial charges at this point—and somehow Drew remained in right, a surprisingly durable performance in the face of all the carnage.

Consider that, following Drew’s injury last week, the Sox rolled out an outfield of Daniel Nava, Darnell McDonald and Bill Hall—and won the game.

For those keeping score at home, those guys were known as Who, Never Heard of Him and Whatshisname during Spring Training.

I’ve made no secret historically about my stance on Drew. I find him overpaid, overrated, and remarkably fragile. So for those of you wondering if I am going to harangue him for this stint on the D.L., the answer is simple:

Of course I am.

And here’s why. It’s not because he’s dealing with a nagging injury, or even that he’s hurt. It’s that he was willing to accept a spot on the disabled list with a wound that only days ago sounded like nothing, and he did so when the team needs bodies in the outfield more than ever.

The Sox are about to cruise through Colorado and San Francisco, cities with two of the better pitching staffs in all of baseball, and will face five right-handers in six games. If ever there was a need for Drew in the lineup, it’s right now. But he can’t be bothered with taking one for the team because he needs to make sure his boo-boo heals.

Give me a break.

Mike Cameron is battling a sports hernia that will require surgery at the end of the season and it’s killing him to miss games. There was a great story on Boston.com today highlighting how much Cameron is hurting—both physically and mentally—and how he aches to return to the field.

And then there’s Drew, who tweaked a hamstring in a way so minor that Terry Francona indicated days ago that there was almost no chance Drew was going on the D.L. Then, with a pair of critical series on the horizon and the Sox already remarkably short-handed, Drew volunteers to sit ‘em out.

Thanks, J.D.

It’s just the latest example. Drew can’t be bothered to suit up if his shoelaces aren’t the same length or if his fingernail is chipped. It’s no wonder many on the Boston radio airwaves have dubbed him Nancy. The man officially has no heart, and zero capacity to put the team before his own concerns.

So let the Drew Defenders tell me all about his superior defense, how he never takes a bad route to a ball, and how he hit a couple of big home runs during the playoffs.

Fine. Point taken.

But you take a walk into the Red Sox clubhouse and ask Mike Cameron, whose body hurts when he swings, runs and throws, what it would take for him to hit the disabled list right about now.

Then try to mount a J.D. Drew defense.

Until then, the prosecution rests.

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I was married on May 31, 2008, the same day Manny Ramirez clubbed his 500th home run at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

For that reason, it’s one of those baseball moments forever ingrained in my mind, as the replay was still dancing across the televisions in the hotel bar as our wedding party meandered in.

That historic feat took place in the same stadium that, barely more than two weeks earlier, Ramirez high-fived a fan sitting beyond the left field wall.

While turning a double play.

And that, in a nutshell, is the Manny Ramirez era in Boston, a bizarre blend of the superlative and the surreal. He was equal parts maniac and megastar, terrorizing opposing pitchers in one moment and terrorizing a dizzy Red Sox fan base in the next.

It’s no wonder, then, that Manny’s reception when he returns to Fenway Park for the first time since being traded in 2008 is the topic of much discussion. Ramirez will take the field as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers tonight, and the polarizing outfielder will likely hear loudly from both those he endeared himself to and those he turned off.

It was different when Johnny Damon came back. He had traded in his Sox for the evil pinstripes of the hated Yankees, an inexcusable offense in the eyes of Red Sox Nation. It was different, too, when Nomar returned last summer, as he was the homegrown star returning to his roots to bury the hatchet.

But nobody’s quite sure what Manny’s here to do. Take a bathroom break in the leftfield wall again, perhaps? Cutoff a throw from the centerfielder standing no more than 20 feet away? Stuff a water bottle in his back pocket, you know, just in case?

The entire Manny Ramirez saga was truly enthralling, a tale that spans two ownerships, two General Managers and two World Series titles. He’s both a World Series MVP and an accused steroid user, leading many to wonder which came first and where those paths may have intersected.

There’s no question the Red Sox would still be chasing the Curse of the Bambino had Ramirez never donned the uniform. But there’s also no question many around Boston would have fewer gray hairs.

The relationship, of course, did not end well. Manny’s distractions grew to be intolerable during 2008, when Boston decided it was better off shipping him to L.A. before an off-season in which his contract options would have been a hot button topic.

And Ramirez was often a malcontent, showing up late for Spring Training or failing to run out a ground ball or coming down with a mysterious and undiagnosable hamstring injury. His act was easier to swallow when he was good for 45 homers and 135 RBI a year; it became more grating when he was more of a 30-100 guy.

But Manny, along with Pedro, shifted the course of Red Sox history. That pair was the core of a team that turned the fate of the frustrated franchise forever, a feared bat and a transcendent hurler that made the Red Sox a joke no longer.

He also deserves credit for building David Ortiz—considered largely the opposite of Ramirez in terms of personality—into the hitter he was. It should also be noted that Big Papi has never truly regained the form he held when Manny was batting either in front of or behind him.

The bottom line is: there’s plenty to cheer about from the Manny Ramirez era. And there’s certainly enough to remain angry about. For that reason I expect something of a mixed reception on Friday, though if I had to place a bet, I’d put money on more cheers than boos.

Of course, we’re dealing with a man who once put his friend’s grill up for auction on eBay and made a cell phone call from inside the Green Monster during a pitching change.

So perhaps the question we should all be pondering isn’t how the fans are going to greet Manny so much as how Manny is going to greet the fans.

This storry was originally posted at 4sportboston.com.

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The Red Sox may have finally found the formula for letting John Lackey settle in on Friday evening: Put up a 10-spot in the first inning.

All kidding aside, though, Lackey has struggled to assimilate to the Red Sox pitching staff, be it because of nerves, traditional slow starts, or whatever.

But the fact of the matter is, he hasn’t exactly lived up to the hype— or contract—thus far, and has been no better than the third best pitcher on the staff behind Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz, neither of whom are in Lackey’s salary neighborhood.

But one has to imagine that Lackey will find the touch before too long. He has a more than respectable pedigree and has proven so formidable in big-game situations that the Angels tossed him out there to start Game Seven of the World Series when Lackey was just a rookie.

But Lackey’s struggles are part of what makes this such a bizarre season so far. The Red Sox have escaped a brutal start and crawled back into playoff contention all without receiving anything close to a major contribution from two of the three pitchers slated for the top of the rotation.

Josh Beckett battled wildness for more than a month before being shelved with an injury that threatens to keep him out for another flip of the calendar. And Lackey is toting an uncharacteristic 4.54 ERA through 13 starts.

If someone told me we’d be in mid-June with little or nothing of consequence from those two guys, I’d have been thinking, “When does hockey start?”

And that’s the encouraging thing. For all the troubles the Red Sox went through in April and early May—and the list is frustratingly long—things are hardly dire. Consider that Boston has climbed to nine games over .500 and only four behind the Rays essentially without the services of Jacoby Ellsbury or Josh Beckett and with sub-par performances from Lackey and, for at least a month-and-a-half, David Ortiz.

Of course, such is life in Major League Baseball. Rarely if ever do all 25 guys fire on all cylinders at the same time, and it’s the nature of good teams to have role players step up while the others find their way. In that sense, the Red Sox are not re-inventing the wheel.

But they have to feel confident knowing that after the All-Star Break, they’ll presumably have a healthy Ellsbury and Beckett. And Lackey will no doubt have found his way by then.

The rest alone could be key for Beckett, who has historically benefited from extra days off en route to the postseason, where he’s done his most memorable damage.

So while Lackey continues to struggle to live up to his contract and off-season hype, the time for official panic has not yet arrived.

In fact, given where the Sox are and what they’ve dealt with, perhaps the outlook is rosier than we all think.

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The chant was clear even on television, so it must have been deafening if you were one of the lucky 37,000 or so in the stands. During the middle innings of Saturday’s showdown with the Kansas City Royals at Fenway Park, the now familiar wave of “Yankees Suck! Yankees Suck!” cascaded down from the bleachers.

And it was downright depressing.

If ever a chant needed to be retired—immediately—it’s that one. It was invented during the malaise that accompanied an 86-year championship drought and began as a way to needle the Yankees and their fans when they visited Boston or local fans paraded en route to the Bronx.

But now it just makes us all look silly.

And pathetic.

Especially when the Yankees aren’t within a 2,000-mile radius at the time of the chant. That Saturday’s chant came after the Sox dropped a pair of games to the mighty Kansas City Royals to open a four-game set only added self-inflicted insult to injury.

The chant represents everything the Red Sox fan was: desperate, sardonic, at times irrational. But two World Championships in four years—more, by the way, than the Yankees in the last decade—have a way of changing things, and along with negatives like the pink hats and bandwagon jumpers come positives like a winning attitude and newfound confidence.

All the chant does is highlight an inferiority complex we supposedly buried with a four-game rally in the 2004 playoffs.

We don’t need it.

In important moments when the Yankees are in town? Perhaps.

But against the Royals? After they made Swiss cheese out of your pitching for two days? Please.

We’re better than that as a fan base. Red Sox fans have long been regarded as intelligent, focused, and unfailingly loyal. But when we start claiming another team sucks while we’re getting our butt handed to us by perhaps the laughing stock of the American League, we all come off like jerks.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of mocking chants.

When Red Sox players sarcastically taped Ted Lilly’s last name to the back of their jackets during the 2003 playoffs in hopes of inciting the crowd to bombard the A’s hurler with taunts—which they accomplished—it was a classic, memorable moment.

Chants of “No-mar’s bet-ter” were perfect during the days when Jeter and Garciaparra battled for the crown of most beloved shortstop.

Pick a player and tweak him as much or as sarcastically as you want. I’m all for finely crafted fan humor.

But the “Yankees Suck” thing has run its course. It was fun while it lasted, but it’s time we grew up a bit and started acting like a franchise that wasn’t surprised when it found its way to the playoffs.

I’m not afraid to admit I once purchased a T-shirt with that very phrase printed on the front of it, and got some good laughs wearing it to Yankee games at Fenway Park. But it’s long since been buried below a pile of other laundry in my dresser drawer.

Hidden by my 2004 World Series Championship T-Shirt.

Where it belongs.

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Mike Cameron is slated to perhaps come off the Disabled List tonight and enter the Red Sox lineup.

This fact alone is not likely to prompt cartwheels in the streets of Boston—but it’s what the transaction would mean that is more important.

With Cameron’s return, the Red Sox will be about as whole as they’ve been since the sixth game of the season when they began a four-game set in Tampa that’s about as important as games in May can be.

They also happen to be getting whole at the same time they’re getting a whole lot better. Last week featured road tests in New York and Philadelphia—against the preseason World Series favorite from each league, no less—sandwiched around a mini home stand with the division-leading Minnesota Twins.

That stretch produced a 5-2 record that could have been even better had Jonathan Papelbon not imploded one night in Yankee Stadium.

Given the state of Red Sox Nation just two weeks ago, five wins in seven games against that kind of competition is nothing short of remarkable. Newspapers and televisions shows had already written three paragraphs of the team’s eulogy when the Sox reminded them it’s only the second month of the season.

I’m not going overboard in the other direction here either. A seven-game stretch of solid play does not a champion make. It’s an encouraging string of games, no doubt, but at this point that’s all it is.

Which is precisely what makes this four-game set in Tampa so interesting. Three wins in four games at the Trop send it from encouraging to downright promising and could set the stage for a three-team division race to the finish line that only last week included just two teams.

The key to the return has been pitching. Clay Buchholz has emerged as the legit Major League starter everyone hoped he would be.

Don’t look now, but two of Daisuke Matsuzaka’s last three starts have been gems, including the near no-no on Saturday night.

This is all with Josh Beckett on the DL and John Lackey out of sorts. If those guys ever get it going, the Sox will have the rotation the fans have been promised.

But that’s for another time. In the here and now, the focus is on the four games with the Rays, who swept the Sox in completely dominant fashion at Fenway less than a month ago. This is Boston’s chance to show how different things are already.

So how different are they? Check back after the next four games and I’ll let you know.

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Laser show.

Turns out Dustin Pedroia was right. He was one of the last remaining riders on the David Ortiz Bandwagon just a few weeks ago when he promised a mob of local reporters that Ortiz would be fine, referring to his own tumultuous start as a rookie three years ago.

His slump was followed by a campaign that earned him Rookie of the Year honors and prompted him to term his propensity for whistling line drives a “laser show.”

And as we sit here several weeks later, it turns out Pedroia was right. Ortiz has since emerged from his slump and has been perhaps the most potent bat in the lineup, save for Kevin Youkilis, over the last week to 10 days.

Nobody’s intimating that Pedroia divined anything here. Ortiz has done all the hard work himself, proving a legion of media and fans alike wrong in the process. Imagine if, as the overreacting Boston press and rabid fanbase had begged, the Red Sox cut Ortiz?

I don’t want to think about it.

Ortiz has worked his average back to well over .200 and has already smoked seven home runs. His slump to start last season was almost twice as long, and yet this one felt more painful given the pouncing of the press on what many believed to be Big Papi’s carcass.

But the story here goes beyond Ortiz and to whom it was that came out and defended him.

In the first three seasons of his career, Dustin Pedroia was a Rookie of the Year, an MVP, and one of the toughest outs in baseball.

And now he’s the embodiment of a leader.

This is a Red Sox team starved for a vocal presence in the clubhouse to take command. The 2004-era team almost had too many such personalities, with the likes of Schilling, Millar, and Damon fighting for the limelight.

But this season’s team is a library to that team’s sports bar. Pedroia has stepped up and established himself as the unquestioned leader. He’s steady on the field, sturdy in character, and stoic in the face of adversity.

He also happens to have a motor that would make Kevin Garnett salivate.

And now he’s the go-to guy. When the team was scuffling mightily earlier this year, it was Pedroia calling everyone out and demanding better play. And all he did that night was snag a line drive, crawl to tag out a runner, and flip to first from his backside for a double play.

He spoke. Then he backed it up.

And then he came to Ortiz’s defense when everyone else in the locker room was treating the slump like the plague and avoiding any comment at all costs. Instead of shying away, Pedroia stood up, defended his teammate, and begged everyone to move on.

Two weeks later, with Ortiz delivering a laser show, indeed, it’s only fair to give credit to the new little big man in the Red Sox clubhouse.

Whether or not he can will this team back into the pennant race remains to be seen. That’s a tall order for anyone, let alone a 5’8″ second baseman. But he’s made it clear that if anyone is going to do it, it will be him.

He already delivered on one promise this season. Who is to say he can’t deliver on another?

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