Maybe you thought that simply flipping the calendar would be enough to produce a clean slate for the Red Sox. New month, new direction, and all that.
Or perhaps the two-hour and five-minute rain delay that took place Sunday afternoon would serve as a cleanser, washing away all the bad baseball that had come before.
If so, think again. The song remains the same. It's a familiar one, and it's hideously out of tune.
Neither May nor Mother Nature could rid the stink from the Red Sox and their start to the 2022 season. When the final game of their hideous road trip mercifully concluded early Sunday night, things were worse than ever, Following their 9-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles, the Red Sox sat a season-high five games under .500. Their deficit in the American League East is already at 7.5, and to put that in perspective, consider: only three other teams are farther out of first place than the Sox -- the Orioles themselves, who sit a mere half-game behind the Sox after taking two-of-three from them this weekend; the rebuilding Washington Nationals, who are eight back in the NL East; and the god-awful Cincinnati Reds, who, while doing a reasonable imitation of the 1962 Mets to date, are already 11.5 back in the NL Central.
Their 3-7 road trip saw them outclassed by three teams in their own division. In each of three series, they lost one game in an extra-inning walkoff. That's not easy to do.
Of course, those games were at least competitive, and theoretically winnable, until a fielding error, or an errant throw by a reliever suggested otherwise.
The same couldn't be said for Sunday, which saw the Sox squander a boatload of chances in the early innings, get overrun in the middle innings as the bullpen imploded and finally, offer a ninth-inning response in the form of a grand slam from J.D. Martinez that made the final far more respectable than it actually was.
In between, you had Christian Vazquez forgetting the number of outs....in the second inning. One could only imagine the groans in the visitor's clubhouse that greeted the news that, yes, after a 2:05 delay, the game would be resuming after all.
If the Sox had entertained the notion that a trip to Baltimore would cure what ailed them, they soon discovered otherwise. Maybe if they had found a way to win the middle game -- rather than literally throw it away, as Hirokazu Sawamura did in the 10th inning -- the failure to complete a sweep would have brought with it some mild disappointment. Instead, the same Orioles team that was just summarily swept by the Yankees prior to this series managed to take two of three from the Sox.
In a desperate attempt to put some shine on an embarrassing weekend, Alex Cora continually circled back to the idea that Monday would serve as a much-needed re-set opportunity. He advised his players to spend the day with their families, get away from the game, and come back ready to right things on Tuesday.
It may be only May, but as Yogi cautioned decades ago, it's getting late early for the Red Sox.
"We got the Angels, we got the White Sox,'' said Cora. "We're playing at home and we've got to get going. We've got to get going.''
In the 10-day trip from hell, the Red Sox averaged a scant 3.1 runs per game and hit just .224. And please, no more talk about barrel rate, or hard-hit ball rate, or any of that. This game is about results, not secondary or underlying numbers which, if held up to the light at the proper angle, suggest that, well, maybe things aren't so bad after all.
The scary thing is how poor the trip could have been without quality starting pitching. True, Nick Pivetta was only average at best, charged with three runs in 4.2 innings. But for the trip, the starters had a collective ERA of 1.84. In the modern game, that should have suggested seven or eight wins over the 10 games.
The actual, retail price? Three wins.
There are gaping holes up and down the lineup. The Red Sox are getting either nothing or next-to-nothing from catcher, first base, second base, center field and right field. They have no closer, and not because they've opted to go by committee -- they don't have anyone in whom they trust for the role.
Worse, they're currently misusing Garrett Whitlock, only their most dynamic arm, wasting him in abbreviated starts rather than deploying him three times per week in relief, either to finish games or bridge games from starter to someone else.
Other than that, it's all going swimmingly.
Want some good news? The upcoming opponents will keep you interested. Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout visit Fenway this week, and next week, the Sox travel to Atlanta to face the defending world champion Atlanta Braves, led by Ronald Acuna Jr. So there's that.
And this: it's an off-day tomorrow, so if things are going to get worse, it won't happen until Tuesday.