Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

Everyone thinks they know baseball. We grew up playing baseball, watching baseball, or maybe reading about baseball. We had the "eyeball" test when looking at young players and had our own version of Sabermetrics (RBIs plus runs scored minus home runs).

The Boston Red Sox came into the 2015 season with a highly touted lineup, thanks to the addition of Hanley Ramirez, Pablo Sandoval, a healthy Dustin Pedroia, a revived Mike Napoli after sleep apnea surgery, and youngsters Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts. What could possibly go wrong?

At best, the Red Sox rotation was comprised of a melange of number three starters, and that was being charitable. News flash, "how's that working out for you?" Paying guys a lot of money doesn't make them better only richer. John Farrell's confidence boosting aside "we have five number ones", doesn't make it so.

In the post-steroid era, the Red Sox early season ERA is over 2 runs a game below the league leader. To be fair, the strikeout to walk ratio portends better results, as this is a better predictor of ERA than ERA itself.

But going inside the numbers, i.e. starting pitching, the Red Sox look every bit as suspect as the "know-nothing" fans thought they would, with an ERA almost FOUR runs worth than league leaders, and nothing encouraging on the horizon.

Yes, it's a marathon, not a sprint, and the Sox have won three series out of four. There's no cause for pushing the panic button, but the Pollyannas pushing the 'Easy' button had better get their collective heads out of the darkness.

If you thought the Red Sox pitching was good enough to win a championship, then you're not smarter than a fifth grader. "I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul."