Are The Red Sox Baseballs Miami Heat?

I know it's only three games into the season, but so far the Boston Red Sox are performing well below the level expected.

We are now three games into the 2011 baseball season and there are some surprises and some let downs thus far.  Now there is still a long way to go and a lot of baseball to play but so far the Boston Red Sox are not looking like the team everyone thought would be a shoe in for the American League East and even head to the World Series, no doubt against the Phillies.

The Red Sox opened up the season against the defending AL champion Texas Rangers and it seems like Texas hasn't skipped a beat since heading into the 2010 World Series.  They roughed up Sox pitchers in all three games sweeping the Sox and giving Boston a 0-3 start.  That puts them behind The Yankees, Blue Jays and The Orioles.  The Orioles are off to a fantastic start at 3-0, but we'll see how long that success lasts.

It hasn't been easy for some of the bigger additions to the Sox line up either.  With the exception of Adrian Gonzalez, Boston has not been very productive.  Only 3 home runs so far and 2 of those belonging to David Ortiz and Carl Crawford is 2-11 and has already been moved down the batting order to the 7 spot.  That right there is particularly disappointing since Boston went after Crawford this off season so aggressively for both his defensive and offensive ability.

So are the Red Sox the MLB equivalent to the Miami Heat?   All the off season signing and hype and starting off on a very disappointing note. Obviously Miami has turned things around late in the NBA season, and the baseball season is in it's infancy.  If we know one thing though, that is that the AL East is the toughest division in baseball and if you get behind it is very hard to catch the teams out in front.