Like any fan whose connection to the team existed when the only hat choices were red and blue, my relationship with the Boston Red Sox is marked by lies and denial.

I pretend to have sold my soul for the first world championship. My party line is that anybody who had a piece of that 2004 title gets a free pass.

Hogwash. That would require looking the other way when Johnny Damon signed with the Yankees or Manny Ramirez started taking birth control.

Certainly the second title in 2007 alleviated that angst, right? Wrong. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be annoyed that J.D. Drew and Josh Beckett still use carbon dioxide. I could let chicken-and-beer fade into the same New England sports pet cemetery as M.L. Carr attending the NBA draft lottery and Victor Kiam cracking jokes about Patriot missiles.

Three rings, well, that’s just an embarrassment of riches. Surely I can accept the fact that the latest title defense is approaching the one-third pole with all the momentum of Kate Hepburn reading “War and Peace.”

No, surely, I can’t. The 2014 edition of the Red Sox is a dumpster fire with worst-to-first-to-worst written all over it. If you are confident that the next four months are salvageable, you are a more loyal subject of the kingdom than I.

The statistical evidence is a monument to mediocrity. Currently last in what is either the toughest or most overrated division in the majors (can’t decide), the Sox entered Sunday’s series finale at Tampa Bay’s Apathy Dome 24th in team batting average, 20th in home runs and OPS, 20th in errors and fielding percentage, 12th in on-base percentage and 17th in ERA.

Not steeped in hideousness or anything. Just spotty, inconsistent, unproductive and borderline unwatchable.

Baseball is a numbers game, after all, and the numbers are frightening. Consider that the Aruban God of Walks, Xander Bogaerts, leads the team in hitting at a .279 clip. Yet his defense is so horrid that we’ve sold our soul to Scott Boras and opted to rent the toothpick-wielding Stephen Drew for the next four months.

We weren’t going to miss Jacoby Ellsbury, the diva/china doll whose speed and spray hitting merely anchored two championship clubs. At least until his two prospective replacements, Grady Sizemore and Jackie Bradley Jr., batted .211 and .200, respectively. Or until the Sox began stealing bases at the 1982-ish rate of one every 3.4 games.

Or maybe I’m the only one who noticed that Brock Freaking Holt was batting leadoff Friday night against the Rays.

At 11 home runs, David Ortiz is keeping up his customary pace. Nary another Sox slugger has more than five, and said runner-up in the category, Mike Napoli, just went on the disabled list with a fickle finger. Napoli joins Shane Victorino, whose chronic lower body issues have convinced me that every little thing isn’t gonna be alright, and Will Middlebrooks, who aside from taking Jenny Dell away from us can stay neither healthy nor productive.

Dustin Pedroia’s numbers through 48 games — .269, 2, 14 — scare the Sun Devil out of me. The dirt-dog abandon and fury with which Pedey plays the game are not a recipe for long-term welfare and production. His body will betray him before his heart and soul do. I pray the process isn’t already beginning.

Pitching is all over the place. Jon Lester’s top-of-the-rotation stuff has deserved a better fate in the win column. John Lackey has been solid, again. Jake Peavy would be fine if we were playing by twilight league golf rules and could throw out his worst inning every night. Clay Buchholz needs a sports psychologist, pronto. Felix Doubront looks like the Quadruple-A, spot starter I always feared he was.

The bullpen, other than Edward Mark Wohlers Mujica, hasn’t been completely gross. There just haven’t been enough big spots to make those quality outings stand out in our memory. We’ve already seen Koji Uehara in enough non-save situations to last a lifetime.

Now John Farrell gets to earn his keep. We will find out if he’s another Terry Francona or Bruce Bochy, or a Cito Gaston who was simply in the right place at the time. Ortiz, Pedroia, Napoli, Victorino and Jonny Gomes did the motivational part of his job for him in 2013.

Locked in the cellar, mired in the muck of a losing streak that’s threatening double digits, can he summon a rally? The Sox started Sunday only seven games out of first place. Closer than they were in late July 2004, if you’re keeping score. A hundred-plus games equals plenty of time to get it right.

Not going to lie or deny: I have my doubts.

Kalle Oakes is a staff columnist. His email is koakes@sunjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Oaksie72.

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