I don’t know what is more frustrating: the Brett Farve-esque, ubiquitous coverage of the LeBron James and co. free agent bonanza that has taken over Sports Center or watching the Red Sox unbelievable resurgence this season marred by a disabled list that closely resembles Baghdad. The free agent speculation is killing me as much as the Injury Gods are killing the Sox. Seriously, I am not sure what would surprise me less: If ESPN reported that LeBron’s dinner order of deep dish Pizza means he may be leaning towards Chicago or if the Red Sox team plane crashed.  Let’s talk some Sox though.

Since April 20, the Red Sox have the best record in baseball. They have gotten nothing out of opening day starter, Josh Beckett. Mike Cameron’s injury riddled season has rendered him about as useful as the Internet in the building I am living in this summer (which may rival the earliest iterations of AOL dial-up for speed). Jacoby Ellsbury, a guy who stole 70 bases last year and was arguably the best lead-off hitter in the game, has played in only nine games this season.

That was essentially what the Red Sox were dealing with up until about two weeks ago. Then the Injury Gods either got drunk and lost control or Theo Epstein did something really terrible to get them angry. They say west coast trips can be brutal, but in a single three game series against the San Francisco Giants, the Sox lost three of their most important players to injuries: Dustin Pedroia on Friday June 25th with a broken foot, Clay Buchholz the following day with a hamstring problem and then Victor Martinez with a broken hand in the Sunday game. When Jason Varitek, Martinez’ backup broke his foot just a few days later, the situation was becoming laughable.

So lets see where we’re at: Their opening day starter (Beckett), their up and coming ace and team ERA leader (Buchholz), the top three guys in their opening day line-up (Ellsbury, Pedroia and Martinez) and their backup catcher (Varitek) are all on the disabled list. We haven’t even mentioned yet Daisuke Matsuzaka’s two stints on the DL, Manny Delcarmen and Jeremy Hermida’s current stints or J.D. Drew, who has shockingly avoided going on the list at any point this year but who has probably the most sensitive hamstrings in the history of sports and has missed seemingly every other game with some nagging injury.

So that begs a number of questions: How the hell are the Red Sox only a game and half out of first place in the best division in baseball? How do they lead the major leagues in runs scored? How do they have three starters with at least nine wins? How is Adrian Beltre (who single handedly injured at least two and maybe three of the current disabled Red Sox) not in jail?

To me the answers to these questions are two-fold. First, they have gotten tremendous production from some likely and unlikely guys. Kevin Youkilis and his 1.000 OPS and Jon Lester and his 10 wins, 118 Ks and 2.76 ERA have been every bit of what the Red Sox thought they would be. But how about Big Papi? People thought once again when he started slowly that he was washed up. Far from it; the big, jolly DH has accumulated 17 Home Runs and 54 RBIs. Not bad for a guy whose career was said to be finished. What about Adrian Beltre? The Red Sox signed him for his defense and he is leading the team with a .341 batting average and 165 total bases. Buchholz has more than made up for Beckett’s production. And yes, all three of those guys (Ortiz, Beltre and Buchholz) are headed to Anaheim for the All-Star game next week. Marco Scutaro, Darnell McDonald and Daniel Nava (who has been an unbelievable story thus far) have been outstanding role players as well.

The other part of the answer is the manager, Terry Francona. There are always those naysayers, who no matter what the sport is, will argue that the manager/coach does not matter. I don’t agree with that and certainly not in this case. Francona is the quintessential player’s manager. He is great at integrating new guys into the locker room and balancing playing time and he never throws his guys under the bus. For a team that has started its opening day lineup only four times this season and has only one player who currently holds his opening day spot in the lineup (Youkilis batting 4th) there has been very little consistency in Boston this baseball season. The key constant has been Francona. Tonight he is parading out a lineup that includes Eric Patterson, Bill Hall and Kevin Cash. Tomorrow he is sending rookie Felix Doubrant, who will be making only his second big league start, to the mound. Thus far, I would love to see the argument against Francona for manager of the year given the adversity his club has faced. I just hope he and the Red Sox can keep it up as they begin to get some of these guys back.

Hopefully the Red Sox will present the Injury Gods with some kind of olive branch and maybe even persuade them to break A-Rod’s leg, Jeter’s foot or perhaps pull C.C. Sabathia’s stomach. If they don’t, I may get so fed up that I go back to “LeBron watch.”