That could still be the case. However, if recent history is any indication, the first few games in Texas against the defending American League champs had all the makings of a difficult start. In a sport often defined by numbers, some of the more basic ones had already spelled doom for Boston.
The hype machine, which will start right back up if and when the Red Sox get it going, had blinded too many of us to see it coming.
With a 12-5 rout of the Red Sox on Saturday night, the Rangers held a 21-10 scoring advantage over two days against the beleaguered Boston pitching staff. 13 of the runs scored by Texas have come on seven home runs.
"We've given up too many runs the first couple of days," manager Terry Francona said in a blunt, obvious but very telling line.
While some of those numbers might be shocking on the surface, they had plenty of precedent.
Jon Lester's difficult start in the opener was just the latest in a long line of April issues for him. Not that his teammates wanted to see him give up three home runs for the first time in his career during Friday's 9-5 setback, but they would expect it a bit more in the first month of the year.
John Lackey, who gave up nine runs in 3 2/3 innings on Saturday, has almost always struggled against the Rangers and it has been even worse in Arlington, where his ERA now sits at 6.78 in 17 starts. Some of the guys who did the damage, Ian Kinsler and Josh Hamilton, have consistently had their way with the Red Sox right-hander over the years.
Lackey still struggled to make sense of what had occurred after he surrendered six of his runs during a horrid fourth inning.
"I expect to do well every time I pitch, it's a shock when something like this happens, for sure," Lackey said. "It sucks, but it's one game."
It is just one game, but it drops Boston to 1-9 in the team's last 10 games in Texas dating back to Aug. 2009. The AL East favorites are no stranger to shrinking in the heat of the Lone Star State.
Given each of those ugly trends, it might not be all that stunning to see Boston as one of nine teams in major league baseball in search of their first win.
In addition, and this last item has nothing to do with statistics, it is the Rangers, not the Red Sox, who received rings celebrating their AL championship prior to Saturday's game. No matter how stacked Boston might be, the team on the other side is the one that enters 2011 standing tall.
So what you had was two pitchers with the numbers stacked against them (Lester in April, Lackey against Texas) pitching in a place where their team so often falls flat and against a squad that is already locked in at the plate. It had a recipe for disaster, but because of the talk of 100 wins and championship glory, it wasn't so plain to see.
After back-to-back routs at the hands of the Rangers, it's hard to ignore.
