Early in the season, the Red Sox have answered their critics in terms of offensive production. Top 10 in runs (82) and Top 5 in HRs (24). No, it’s been their pitching and defense, their supposed strengths that have let them down early on this season. They have a team ERA of 4.70 and have already made 14 errors. All of their starters, excluding Clay Buchholz (2.70) have ERAs in the 5s or higher. Beckett posts a 5.26, Lester posts a 6.23, Lackey a 5.09, and Wakefield a 5.40. Wakefield now moves to the ‘pen with the impending return of Daisuke Matsuzaka to the rotation on Saturday.

The bullpen has also been extremely inconsistent. Lights out one night, blowing up another. Atchison needs to go, plain and simple. Schoeneweis just can’t get it done anymore either. Drop those two and put Michael Bowden and Dustin Richardson or Alan Embree into the ‘pen.

Catchers have struggled throwing out baserunners, no more evident than when Texas stole 9 bases off the Sox. Victor Martinez’s struggles are going to hurt his chances of the Sox re-signing him and him getting a quality deal on the open-market. Look for the Sox to let Ortiz go and make V-Mart the full-time DH.

One bright spot this season has been the resurgence of Jason Varitek offensively. He’s already hit 4 HRs and driven in 8. Perhaps him not playing everyday will keep him fresher and make him able to produce on a more consistent basis. One thing’s for sure though, the Sox need a catcher who can defend, manage the running game, call a quality game, and hit. Luis Exposito may be their best bet, but he’s a few years away from being MLB-ready.

Sox need to get their pitching sorted out, be more consistent defensively, and get key people off the DL, and hopefully they’ll start making a run back towards the top of the standing as the summer progresses. For all the promise with the changes this off-season, 4th place and 5.5 games out of first place is not where I envisioned this team as we head into May.

The Celtics hold a 3-1 series lead over the Heat and they look to close them out on Tuesday. Pierce hit a clutch buzzer-beat to win Game 3. Celtics couldn’t match that effort in Game 4 as Dwayne “Flash” Wade just took over and dominated the Celtics all game long.

Tuukka Rask and Miro Satan helped the Bruins defeat the Buffalo Sabres 4 games to 2 to advance to the Eastern Conference Semifinals

The Bruins, who struggled all season long at home, won all 3 games at home in the series against the Buffalo Sabres, as the 6th-seeded Bruins knocked the #3 Sabres out of the playoffs in 6 games. David Krejci, Mark Recchi, and Miro Satan led the way offensively for the B’s. The story of the series was goaltending however. Don’t be misled by some of the scores, the goaltending on both sides was absolutely phenomenal especially in Game 4 where the Bruins won 3-2 in Double OT. Tuukka Rask and Ryan Miller kept their teams in the games time and again and for the most part, the goals they let in, they really had no chance of saving. Nice to see a young goaltender like Rask face the pressure of the NHL playoffs and excel. He took over the #1 job from Tim Thomas and the team has played much more solid in front of him. He’s calm in net and his team plays that way in front of him. With the solid play of Rask, and impending return of Marc Savard, the Bruins could be a serious threat to make the Stanley Cup Finals out of the East. The Bruins wait for the Canadiens/Capitals series to conclude to find out their Semi-Final opponent. If the Habs win the series, the B’s play the Flyers. If the Caps win, B’s play the defending Stanley Cup Champs, the Penguins. Either series would be a tough challenge, but the B’s showed they can get it done, beating the best goalie in the world in 6 games.

If the Sox can turn it around, and the Bruins and Celts continue to play strong and hot in the playoffs, this could conceivably be a year that Boston wins all 4 major sports titles and truly live up to our name of Title Town USA.

We apologize about the lack of posts recently, school and work tend to get in the way of things sometimes it seems.

First off, congratulations to the New Orleans Saints and the city of New Orleans on the Super Bowl victory. Manning may very well be the top-QB in the NFL, but I’ll take our 3 rings and Brady any day.

Bruins went into a winter hibernation, losing 10-straight before recently turning it around before the Olympic Break, winners of their last 4 and points in their last 6. Tuuka Rask was in net for all 6 of those games. His calm and composed demeanor radiates off of him, making his teammates play the same way in front of him. In contrast, Tim Thomas is constantly looking like a fish out of water and his teammates play nervous and tentative in front of him. It’s a hard pill to swallow, having a $5mm a year back-up goalie, but if the Bruins want to win, they NEED to turn the reigns over completely to Tuuka Rask. In hockey, you turn to the hot-goalie and that has been Tuuka all season long. For the most part, he has kept his team in every game that he has played in, which is all one can ask of their goalie. Tim Thomas played out of his mind last season, winning the Vezina Tropy in the process. But this season, he’s showing why he was a journeyman for all of those years. Fortunately for the Bruins, the Eastern Conference is wide-open this year and their losing streak didn’t hurt them too much in the standings, as they now sit in 7th place following their 4-game winning streak to end the first-half. They have to play like they have been the past 6 games and stay healthy and I think this team could be a sleeper come playoff time.

The Celtics are at the half-way of their season and needless to say, they have been a bit disappointing. Garnett can’t seem to stay healthy and there have been talks about trading away Ray Allen. One bright spot is Paul Pierce winning the 3-point contest during the All-Star weekend. He wanted to be in the competition and he did not disappoint. Also of note from the All-Star festivities, is the continuing downfall of the Slam Dunk contest. I truly believe that Lebron James could bring it back to where it was in its hayday. Back to the Celtics, another bright-spot is the continuing development of Rajon Rondo, whose play this season garnered him an All-Star selection. If the Celts want to compete for a title this season, they’re going to have make a move.

It’s almost baseball season! Pitchers and catchers officially report tomorrow and position players later in the week. The team improved tremendously defensively in the off-season with the acquisitions of Adrian Beltre, Marco Scutaro, and Mike Cameron. With Jacoby Ellsbury shifting to Left Field, the Sox have an outfield that will cover a lot of ground and not too many balls are going to drop in. Beltre at Third Base will give the Sox a gold-glover and will allow Kevin Youkilis to play 1B full-time. The strength of the team will definitely be the starting pitching with a rotation of Jon Lester, Josh Beckett, John Lackey, Clay Buchholz, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and Tim Wakefield waiting in the wings. Not too many positional battles will be going on this year besides the fight for the 4th outfield spot and the bullpen. Mike Lowell needs to show he’s healthy and will be able to contribute to a team so the Sox can deal him. Jed Lowrie is fighting for a job as well with Bill Hall as the team’s utility-man. One guy to keep an eye on this Spring is Casey Kelly and how fares against some higher, tougher competition. Sox open up the regular season against the Yankees at Fenway Park on April 4th. Here’s hoping to for another solid season from the Sox and hopefully we’ll be seeing them in Soxtober once again.

(because it sounds so much better than ‘random thoughts’…)

Here is what I hope will be the first of many deep thoughts posted on this blog.  (If you’re not familiar with the reference, it’s from SNL…click here.)

JUST SAY NO…to Michael Vick.

Respected NFL-insiders Peter King and John Clayton both considered the possibility that the Patriots could be suitors for the once highly-touted QB.  The line of thinking is that the Pats have taken risks on players with sullied reputations (Corey Dillon, Randy Moss) and if there is any coaching staff/locker room that could reign in Vick it would be one lead by Belichick and Brady.  And let’s not forget that the Pats were burned by the Wildcat formation against Miami early last season and would probably love to develop a variation of the package.  Could you think of a better Wildcat weapon than Vick?  His “slash” skill-sets are almost tailor-made for the formation.

Sorry, but quit dreaming; it’s not that simple.  This isn’t Madden football we’re talking about where there are no real consequences.

For one, the argument that the Pats have signed plenty of malcontents and therefore ”why not sign Vick?” is deeply flawed.  Dillon and Moss had attitude problems and were looking for a change of scenery.  Vick, on the other hand, is a convicted criminal.  After two years in the slammer, there is a decent chance that Vick’s skills may have deteriorated.  Look, he was fun to watch, but he was a mediocre pocket-passer to begin with, so if he lost any athleticism he will be a below-average-to average player at best.

This team has dealt with spygate, “running up the score” and a plethora of other minor controversies over the last few years, but I doubt the Pats (or many other teams for that matter) are going to want to deal with the potential backlash that comes with signing Vick.  PETA and other animal rights groups are likely to be all over any team that signs Vick.  The Pats would be smart to avoid the media circus that is certain to cling to Vick.

By and large, the mainstream Boston sports media is in line with this opinion…and it should be. Whether you are an animal lover or not, what Vick did was inexcusable.  But, he paid a hefty debt for his actions and in a society filled with second chances, he will get a second shot at the NFL.  Just not in a Patriots uniform.