But. If. Maybe. Almost. And the worst of them all ... It's still early.
They have all been weaved into the narrative when it comes to these 2022 Red Sox, or, more specifically, these 10-16 2022 Red Sox. A hit here. A pitch there. Things would be different.
The latest crutch came in the form of a player Rich Hill aptly described as someone "we haven’t seen in 100 years and we may never see it again for another 100 years," Shohei Ohtani.
Sure, the Red Sox didn't score once again in losing to the Angels, 8-0, Thursday afternoon at Fenway Park. But they were going up against the best athlete in the game, who - in the tradition of Dennis Eckersley - legitimately seems to pump in 100 mph just to stay in shape.
Ohtani dominated the Red Sox hitters, striking out 11 while not allowing a run over seven innings. And, just for good measure, he struck out the first Sox hitters - Trevor Story, Rafael Devers, Xander Bogaerts and J.D. Martinez - a total of 10 times. (Story accounted for four of the punch-outs, eliciting his first round of Fenway boos.)
Sure. Ohtani is really good. So are the Angels. But you know what? We were supposed to be saying the same thing about the Red Sox. Instead we're staring at a team that has lost five straight series and has lost 11 of its last 15 games.
“I think that’s one thing where it doesn’t matter what you could say, hey at least it’s early in the season but the fact is the only way we’re going to get back to where we need to be is taking it at a smaller step than one game at a time, is one pitch at a time, one swing at a time and being able to make things small, and not so big," said Hill, who did his part by allowing just one hit over five innings.
"The fact is, whether it’s a starting pitcher putting a lot of pressure on themselves to go out there and put up zeroes for seven innings, eight or nine innings, even thinking about that for the game, that mindset has to become one pitch at a time, and that’s the process part of it. Now these are the conversations we’ll have during batting practice, in the cage, around the cage during BP, and what I see is the side of it, teams can go one of two ways. Kind of gravitate towards each other, or start to move away, and we really need to continue to keep pulling for each other, as everybody is in the locker room. We can look at the road trip that we had, a few games here or there and it could have been a completely different road trip. But the fact is, it wasn’t, and we are where we are and we have to dig ourselves out of this.”
The questions about this team's mindset kept coming after the loss, with the answers not able to put any sort of dent in New England's newfound panic.
“It’s not ideal at all. I think we’re all aware of it," said J.D. Martinez. "We’re just not playing well. When we pitch, we don’t hit. When we hit, we don’t pitch. It’s a bad combo.”
"It’s hard because if you look at it, you can start looking at this game, that play, we’re just not cashing in so it really doesn’t matter," Alex Cora added. "I can walk you through the series with this pitch or that play, but in the end, you have to put a complete game together and we haven’t been able to do that in a while."
"I mean, it’s a long season," explained Tanner Houck, who gave up seven runs in his 2 1/3 innings, following up Hill. "This team is very dangerous. Don’t sleep on it. It just takes one day, one game, one at-bat to turn things around for everyone. I still love this team. I love everyone here. I know it’s hard right now but things will get better."
Making the scenario even more maddening for Cora's club is the fact that the one piece of the puzzle - the starting pitching - so many doubted entering the season has gone above and beyond.
After Hill's outing the Sox starters have allowed two or fewer runs in 13 of 14 games, including 10 runs in their last 12 games.
That's good. Everything else? Not so much.
Three out of the four May games, the Red Sox relievers have allowed six or more runs, going 5-for-12 in save opportunities for the season. The offense has scored more than five runs just three times, totaling three or fewer in 13 games.
For whatever reason, little of it is adding up. The numbers bear it out, and so do the visuals.
Business has to get better ... and fast.