By Sisyphus
Baseball Editor

This year's Red Sox take the field this week and as long as they're in the field, they're probably going to look pretty good. 

Once again, the Red Sox Brain Trust has chosen not to shell out for an impact bat, apparently concluding that the similar decision they made before the '09 season worked out great. It sure did: for the New York Yankees.  

Like any true Red Sox fan, let's look at the hole before we sample the doughnut. Who's going to bat cleanup in this lineup? Jason Bay? Oh, wait a minute, the front office gave him his walking papers. David Ortiz? Maybe against the Orioles #5 pitcher. Cameron? Beltre? Year after year the Sox supremos shell out medium bucks for mediocre hitters, and it has never, ever worked. Hello, Jose Offerman.

So what else is in the offense? They've got Pedroia and Youkilis. J.D. Drew is a solid number 6 hitter. We like Victor Martinez, if only because he can get the bat around in less than 45 seconds, unlike his predecessor behind the dish.  

But: Mike Lowell will never swing a bat in a Red Sox uniform again. Jason Varitek might, but the only thing he's going to get out of it is a pulled groin.  And sooner or later, even Theo Epstein is going to have to admit that golden-ager David Ortiz has been walking around with no clothes since the '07 World Series win, and maybe a little earlier.

As for the highly touted offseason pickups, well, let's just say we don't excited any more when we hear the annual springtime front office hype about the Kenmores' next supposed great shortstop. Like the replacement GI's in The Big Red One, they don't stick around long enough for us to learn their names. We were hoping that Nomah would hang around longer than a day, but it was not to be.

(Speaking of which, we hear that all-time Sox stiff Julio Lugo was just traded again, this time for a case of Cracker Jack and a can of Snooki-strength antifungal powder. And guess who's paying $8.6 million for Stiffo to ride the pine in Baltimore? His name rhymes with Barry Bucchino.)

Yes, we know Beltre's a great defensive third baseman, but we remember a time when the Sox had a great offensive third baseman in the lineup.  And in centerfield: an aging inconsistent slugger who whiffs a lot. Boy, we sure could use another one of those! Maybe the Sox hitters should start knocking back whatever Sox legend Bernie Carbo was drinking in 1975. It couldn't hurt.

The party line is that the Red Sox will win a lot of 2-0 games this year. We'll buy the 2 part, but even with a strong rotation, the 0 is a lot to ask.

We're willing to admit that the Red Sox probably have enough starting pitching with Beckett, Lester, Lackey, Buchholz, and Wakefield when a number 5 man is needed. Even if one or two of these horses pulls up gimpy, that's still a pennant-quality rotation.

But baseball games tend to run for nine innings or so, and most starters these days don't. So what's in the House of Horrors, a/k/a the bullpen? We're actually willing to bet that Papelbon will look sharp if only to justify asking for a skillion dollars as a free agent.  

We're also willing to bet he might not be too busy given the setup men in front of him. Delcarmen is lame, both physically and qualitatively. Things have gotten so grim that the Sox front office has even exhumed Alan Embree to provide left-handed relief. We don't think so, but, hell, he couldn't be any worse than John Smoltz.

The only thing we can think of is to hope that Dice-K will get back into shape. Since he's good, literally, for three innings tops, why not try him out as a setup man? If he can't pitch two innings three times a week, he can't pitch six innings twice a week as a starter, so what the hell is he doing?

As far as we can tell, the only reason for hope is that the hapless minority owner of the Red Sox, Arthur "Gracias, Slim" Sulzberger, just unloaded a chunk of his shares. Given the financial astuteness for which the Sulzbergers are world-famous, you'd have to pick the Sox to win it all.

Thoughts on the trip home  SOMEWHERE IN NORTH CAROLINA – As winter turns to spring, things are looking up for the most celebrated boys of summer in New England: the Boston Red Sox and ol' Shill Shamelessly. This year, our beloved Publisher, despite the tough ecnomic climate, made it possible for ol' Shill to make it to his 64th Spring Training by providing an all-expense-paid round-trip bus ticket to Ft. Myers. And let me say, I enjoyed every minute of the 46-hour journey. And thanks to Tiffani at the Ft. Myers bus station for letting ol' Shill cash in the return trip to pay his bill at the Alligator Acres campground a mere 35 miles east of Lakes of Palm Park [That's still not quite it – Ed.] in Florida's wide-open spaces. See you and your portable oxygen tank next spring at the Palmetto Bug, Tiffani! The return trip? No problem. I met a hell of a guy at the Palmetto Bug who, after staking yours truly to a few frosty-cold Keystones and a heaping plate of dirty nachos, allowed me to return the favor by driving his van back to Boston – or more precisely to a certain warehouse in Chelsea. So here's a big shout out to Raoul, who asked me only to avoid Interstate 95 for some reason. Just gives me the chance to take in more of beautiful scenery on the trip home. But enough about me. What do I think about your 2010 Red Sox? It should come as no shock to my legions of devoted readers to learn that I think that baseball geniuses Larry Lucchino and Theo Epstien have put together one hell of a ball club. How far can the '10 edition of the Olde Towne Team go? I'll be the first to say it: all the way, baby. That World Championship banner is going to look mighty fine next to its two cousins, Red Sox Nation. Now I know there's a few grumpy nay-sayers out there worried about the Sox offense. A few of them have even gone so far to say that this is worst-hitting team since 1965. First of all, talk like that about Yaz and expect a Shill Shamelessly shiner. But I digress. It would have been the easy, popular thing to do to open up John Henry's bank vault and shell out for an impact slugger. But the Sox front office was too clever to fall into that trap. They've assembled a lineup of smart, patient hitters who get the ball in play and the player on the bases. And that's the name of the game. Not to mention that the Sox have plenty of veteran lumberers [Surely, lumber – Ed.], including the Messrs. Ortiz, Varitek, and Lowell. Don't tell me those fine players aren't going to do some damage in Fenway Park. [Maybe to their knees – Ed.] No, we'll let the Yankees, the Dodgers, and the Tigers try to buy their way to a pennant. Our Red Sox will do it the old-fashioned way: on the cheap. After all, it's worked plenty of times before. Next week: Ace baseball columnist Shill Shamelessly looks back at Opening Day from a holding cell at the Federal Detention Center at Ft. Devens.