Are the Red Sox where you expected them to be? NAY

Every so often, we in New England must undergo a Red Sox retrenchment, when the clock strikes midnight on the Sox’ success, the team turns into a pumpkin and we grudgingly admit, as former manager Joe Morgan once said, “this team isn’t as good as people think.” With the Sox at .500, tied for last place in the AL East at the All-Star break, this would seem like one of those times.Going into Opening Day, though, I wasn’t ready to place 2012 into the same category as, say, 1992 – the season after Morgan was fired, and the Sox subsequently finished last. On paper at least, this year’s Sox had the horses to overcome a disastrous 2011 and yield what Wall Street would call a “market correction” in 2012.I would have put up the top three starting pitchers – Josh Beckett, Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester – against the front three anywhere else, anytime. Yet Beckett and Lester have turned in uncharacteristic numbers, going a combined 9-13, with neither impressing against the Yankees in the series that closed the first half. Having just one of your starters struggle can be a challenge. Having two struggling and a third (Buchholz, who was pitching well at 8-2) out with stomach woes can be deadly.We also couldn’t have predicted that the injury bug would hover again and claim so many key players. OK, we knew that Carl Crawford and Andrew Bailey were sidelined due to offseason surgery ? but we didn’t know that during the season, the Sox would lose both last year’s Comeback Player of the Year (Jacoby Ellsbury) and the 2008 AL MVP (Dustin Pedroia). A duo with that much power and speed would have revitalized the lineup.The third “unknown unknown,” as Don Rumsfeld might say, is that the Red Sox were getting as tired of Kevin Youkilis as they once had with Manny Ramirez. And just like they did with Manny, they got rid of Youk, sending him to the Chicago White Sox, where he is showing he still knows how to win games.The 2012 and 1992 seasons began similarly. The team faded down the stretch the previous year. The front office parted ways with a popular, successful manager. The ace of the staff developed a pampered reputation (which is worse, Roger Clemens complaining about carrying his luggage or Beckett indulging in beer and fried chicken?).If Beckett and Lester return to form ? and if Buchholz, Ellsbury and Petey come back ? then maybe history won’t repeat itself, and the Sox can escape last place and salvage a wild-card berth.If not, well, to paraphrase The Rocket’s old theme song, I think it’s gonna be a long, long time before things get better.Rich Tenorio can be reached at [email protected].