Green: Are the Sox lucky … or just good?

For a team sport, baseball sure requires a lot of alone time: on the pitcher’s mound, in the batter’s box or tracking down that fly ball to deep center. A winning baseball team thus relies on individual contributions from the whole roster. That’s a tall order. I don’t know of a team so lucky that no one ever got injured or had a bad year. Last year, the Sox were very unlucky, with injuries taking out half the team at once. This year, however, the Red Sox have been fortunate: when one player has struggled, another has always stepped up.

Veteran set-up man Mike Timlin spent the first couple of months of the season pitching ineffectively and battling injuries, but question marks Hideki Okajima and Brendan Donnelly proved themselves. Now, with Donnelly on the DL and Okajima flirting with overuse, Timlin is having a renaissance and Manny Delcarmen has risen to the challenge.

Curt Schilling is having an up-and-down year. There’s no doubt that the Red Sox will need his arm in the homestretch. Nevertheless, who would have dreamed that his young protégé, Josh Beckett, would become Mr. Consistency? Who would have expected so many quality outings from Julian Tavarez? A complete-game shutout from understudy Kason Gabbard? With the staff ace on the DL, the timing couldn’t be more fortuitous.

Manny Ramirez got off to a slow start this season. But Kevin Youkilis provided much of the pop through April and May, driving in 30 runs in the first two months. But as he’s battled that sore quadriceps, his numbers have taken a nose dive: he’s hitting just .238 in July heading into last night. How lovely, then, that Julio Lugo’s bat has chosen this moment to join the ballclub: after hitting .089 (ew) in June, Lugo has hit around .360 in July. And while David Ortiz might not have gotten good pitches to hit, Mike Lowell certainly has. Some folks are worried Lowell will slow down in the second half, as he did last year. Not to worry, folks, for Ortiz and Ramirez are swinging once more. Propitious, no?

 As any Sox fan knows, even the most charmed season can degenerate with alarming speed. A lucky team doesn’t lose too many players to injury or ineptitude at once. But a really lucky team has to have multiple players getting hot down the homestretch. The Sox have been lucky. Will they get really lucky?

Branch Rickey liked to say that luck was just the residue of design. Good teams battle through with one or two stars shouldering the burden. But on great teams, everyone pulls some weight, though not all at the same time. Like a relay race, the baton passes from player to player. For a sport with so much alone time, it sure requires a lot of teamwork.

Sarah Green is a freelance writer who can be reached at sgreen@gmail.com.