Panicked curly haired one

In typical fashion, the Globe's preeminent Knight of the Keyboards, Dan Shaughnessy tells his readers it's too early to panic then proceeds to do just that. And being Dan, he must marinate his bitter, spoiled (the Red Sox are going to ruin my summer, aren't they? he cries) rant, with some weird shots across the...basement...of the sabermetrics crowd blogging away in that mythical blogosphere basement. I think.

Making up seven or eight games is certainly possible. It happens every year. But the 2010 Sox have two powerhouses to catch, and thus far they have done nothing to indicate great things are in store. They are 1-8 against the Rays and Yanks, all at Fenway. Yesterday’s embarrassment ended with rookie center fielder Jonathan Van Every on the mound for the locals. Oh, and Mark Teixeira hit three homers. Good thing the Sox didn’t sign him. Those homers and RBIs are really overrated, right?

Well, RBIs are. They're the product of circumstance (aka, runners on base, i.e., On Base Percentage). Scoring runs certainly isn't overrated. Nor are home runs. I thought it was Dan's ilk who bemoaned the modern focus on HRs to the detriment of the beloved "small ball."

I'm also fairly certain no one with a brain thought it was a great idea for Boston to not sign Teixeira. Trouble is, they already have a pretty fair hitter at first base. They're stuck, to be sure, with two geriatrics, Ortiz and Lowell, who have become an expensive DH platoon, but acquiring Teixeira would not have changed that.

It looks like those sun-deprived stat geeks eating pudding in their basement (the same nitwits who insist that homers and RBIs are overrated) outsmarted themselves in assessing this unit. Marco Scutaro is not better than Alex Gonzalez (not to rub it in, but Gonzo has 10 homers already for the Blue Jays). The Cameron-Ellsbury combo hasn’t gotten out of the trainer’s room, and Beltre is emerging as an Edgar Renteria or Rasheed Wallace, take your pick.

Beltre is scuffling in the field, to be sure. But Rasheed Wallace, wha?

Again, "stat geeks" tend to love the HR. You see, they really like Slugging Percentage, and HRs are like, you know, 1.000 in terms of slugging. Oh, never mind, this pudding is really tasty.