After a prolonged absence, this all that I likely need to say: this has been the most enjoyable Red Sox regular season of my lifetime. The regular season conditional is necessary, of course, because of those four days in October and what came after. But as has been covered to death, coming off the last month of 2011 and every month of 2012, from The Collapse to the Valentine Nightmare, expectations entering 2013 were at an all time low. As the end of the sell out streak, and the continuing lack of bodies in seats, indicates.

But while the Red Sox may feel compelled to give seats away for $1 in their questionable Get Beard promotions, the reality is that every Red Sox fan I know feels the same way I do. Fans have loved this season, and this team. Freed of the burden of expectations – whether they’re budget, performance or otherwise driven – it’s been enough to simply enjoy the games. Even the losses, at times. Observers of the Yankees noted for years that the regular season had become in many ways a joyless pursuit. By signing virtually every big ticket free agent, the club not only implied to its fans that the postseason was its manifest destiny, but that it was the World Series or bust. Which is an impossible expectation for any team, given that if the postseason has taught us anything, it’s that it’s a crapshoot. Any given team on any given day and so on.

By 2011, the Red Sox season was as joyless as the Yankees’, thanks to what Theo Epstein has referred to as “The Monster.”

As it turns out, however, winning when you do not expect to win is sweet indeed. And virtually no on expected the Red Sox to win. Better than three dozen ESPN analysts projected the final season standings. None picked the Red Sox to win the AL East. For my part, as the record shows, my absolute best case scenario for the Red Sox this year was a wild card berth – a chance to play a single winner take all game at the end of the 162 game regular season. Worst case, that we would lose less than 93 games. And while I will probably never be happier to be wrong, I wasn’t the only one to undersell this year’s team. The front office, in fact, had it pegged for an 86 win season – borderline wild card contender, in other words. According to their projections, the probability that the Red Sox would win 90 plus games was roughly 30%. So of course the standings show 94 wins and counting.

How did we get here? Considerable luck, not unlike the Baltimore Orioles of last year – that part, at least, I got right. It’s not every season, after all, that you come from behind 30 times and win 20 games in your last at bat. If we don’t win half of those 20 games, after all, we’d be having a very different conversation today. But the games were won, and thus was the division won.

It wasn’t all luck, however. When Ben Cherington wasn’t trading for more relievers to blow up in his face, he was actually doing pretty well – Amherst grad or no. Rejecting the comically bad ideas from local media to replicate the Carl Crawford debacle after just having escaped from it by signing Josh Hamilton, the second year Red Sox GM instead pursued a strategy similar, again, to those moneyballing A’s. Rather than concentrating your assets – and your risk – in a few star players, Cherington used the money that some would have had us deploy towards Hamilton to instead acquire Dempster, Gomes, Napoli, Victorino and, later, Peavy. Unless you’re a fan of $123M players with four years left on the contract who put up a .245/.301/.431 line, you’re probably going to argue that Cherington did the right thing. And given the standings, the other AL East teams are likely to back you up.

What does all of the above mean as we head into the postseason? Absolutely nothing, of course. In the second season, everybody’s win count is reset to zero and, more importantly, anything can happen. Just as they over-react to failure, many in the media are over-rotating on our divisional success. Which is a mistake, because it’s far from clear that the Red Sox are, in fact, built for postseason success. For all that their depth served them well for the long regular season, it’s equally possible that their lack of star power on offense could be exposed when facing high end pitching in the playoffs. For example: the Red Sox have tied or losing records versus seven teams this year: five are potential playoff opponents (BAL, DET, KCR, OAK, TEX). And even against the teams they beat more often than not, the numbers point to challenges. Of the 19 games against Tampa this year, we won 12 of them. That’s good. The fact that we hit .208/.280/.333 in doing so, on the other hand, is less good.

But there’s time to worry about all of that later, and besides, the playoffs are a crapshoot. Right now, all that we have to do is enjoy the last days of the best regular we’ve seen these many years past. Because it’ll be over before you know it.

Cast your mind back to 2008. The Rays were really good, ending up in the World Series. We played pretty well ourselves, winning 95 games and taking the kids from Florida to seven games in spite of starting an obviously damaged Beckett in the postseason. The Yankees, meanwhile stumbled out of the gate and could never quite recover. They won 89 games in a transitional year, missing the playoffs. The Yankee’s record after 25 games? 12-13. Games back? 4.

Where are we on this not so fine Monday, heading into a stretch where 20 of 23 games will be played against the Angels, Yankees, Rays, Twins, Tigers and Phillies? 11-14, 7 games back. It’s far, far too early to throw in the towel on 2010, as some are already doing. We’ve got 85% of the schedule left to play. But if we don’t turn things around in a major way, pretty much immediately, the history is not on our side.

Give me a reason to hope, guys. Please. I don’t want articles like this one to be the highlight of my day.

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }
.flickr-yourcomment { }
.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }
.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Fenway Park, originally uploaded by sogrady.

Today sucked, I get that. And yes, I’m just as unhappy as you are. I don’t enjoy residing – as we do after today’s 7-4 debacle – at the bottom of the division any more than you do, I promise. Less, probably.

But remember, people: it’s a marathon. We’re seven games in, and only two games back of the division leading, um, Orioles (seriously, look it up). Five days ago in Oakland we looked liked world beaters; that wasn’t realistic. But neither is it appropriate to write off this year’s club after three pedestrian outings in Toronto.

Particularly since the losses can largely be attributed to one single area of the club: the bullpen. Sure, the offense isn’t exactly lighting it up, after getting manhandled by the likes of Shaun Marcum. But realistically, it’s the bullpen that’s to blame. Or more specifically, the middle relief as Oki and Pap have been themselves.

Whether or not it’s true, as Remy asserted during today’s telecast, that the overexposure of the bullpen is directly attributable to the fact that our starters were one start short in spring training due to the Japan trip is, in my mind, academic. We are where we are, and whatever is to blame, we’ve got games to play. Games that count.

Part of the solution may arrive in the ongoing reconfiguration of the bullpen – Snyder’s already gone, and one of Aardsma/Corey will be exiting when Timlin comes off the DL this week – but honestly, I’m not sure what to expect. The non-setup/closer relief on virtually every club, contenders included, is suspect. They pitch low leverage innings for a reason, after all.

In all likelihood, we’ll be dealing for relief help in addition. Whether that’s a Crisp in the short term or kids in the longer term is unclear at this point. The direction we take will depend, obviously, on the performances of the current major league staff, but also potential contributors from the minors. Speaking of, Masterson allowed> 3 hits (2 infield singles) and no runs to go along with 7K’s and 0BB’s in 4 IP for Portland.

Besides the bad news, there are a great number of positives to take away. Drew looks good swinging the bat, Tek has recovered as expected, and the starters have generally been excellent to solid. Lester and Matsuzaka, as discussed, were both outstanding. Wake pitched very well, Buchholz tossed out an acceptable start, and Beckett – fresh off the DL – threw very well until the last inning when he was betrayed by Delcarmen.

As an aside on Delcarmen, count me among those who’s skeptical of the “relief ace” tag many have been applying to him this past offseason. He throws hard, without question, but his location is often poor and his fastball is pin-straight. I like him in the bullpen mix, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not sold on him becoming a Tier 1 setup man.

But back to our pitching in general; you may be unimpressed with our offense, which has managed a relatively pathetic .242/.308/.372 thus far, but our staff – the bullpen implosions aside – has held our opponents to the following .228/.320/.363.

If pitching and defense win games, then, we should be ok. Well, except for the defense, which thanks to Casey, Lugo and even Lowell has been less than stellar. But that’s transient, in my opinion.

But anyway, I’m not telling you not to be upset. I’m not even telling you not to be angry. But I am telling you not to panic. 3-4 is way to early for that. 3-5, maybe, but not 3-4.

Let’s see what the kids can do at home.