The Hollow Men.

Back to .500, huh?

Here it is, warts and all: John Lackey was terrible today. The defense was unspectacular. And the offense could barely register any sort of presence against a call-up from AAA. Yesterday, Jon Lester sucked and the bullpen was embarrassingly bad. Try as I might (and God love 'em, I do try), it's getting harder and harder to defend.

Is this who they really are, though? Eighty-one wins and a very long summer? There would seem to be so much potential there. Intellectually, they should be a very good team. But the results are awful. Who knows, maybe Ellsbury comes back and the lineup has a completely different look. Maybe Victor remembers how to hit. Maybe John Lackey and Josh Beckett figure out how to pitch. Maybe David Ortiz really does come back. Or maybe none of it happens.

In his poem The Hollow Men, T.S. Eliot writes that man is stuck in an indecisive rut. He knows what the problem is and he knows what needs to be done to solve it. But, out of fear, he can't bring himself to act. As a result, he's stuck in a horrible, desolate place that he would love to escape. He goes through life hating every moment of it but unable to change any of it. It's a little dark.

Presumably, this team knows that they should be better than this and that the way to be better is to win ballgames. But something is holding them back--maybe injuries, probably not fear. My fear is that they settle, that they come to believe that they're a mediocre ball club. Because if you settle, if you just accept things as being the way they are, this is the way the world ends.