Time to vent about last-place Boston Red Sox

Dear John:

You owe me.

Four tickets to one game at Fenway Park? $294.80.

Four hotdogs, one macho nacho, two premium beers, two sodas in souvenir cups and one big ass margarita in a weird V-shaped plastic glass with a plastic baseball base for my wife? $79.

Assorted souvenir caps, a replica Brock Holt jersey, key chains and trinkets? Shit, I lost count. Ballpark figure? $100.

Watching the Boston Red Sox lose another lopsided game en route to another last-place finish? Helpless.

You know what I’m talking about, John. You were there that night.  July 29. You were on the field before the game for Dominican night. I saw you hug Pedro Martinez, which confirms – contrary to your Opening Day remark about Clay Buchholz -- that you might actually know an ace pitcher when you see one.

I assume you stayed for that game and sat in your suite which was on the same level as my seat in Pavilion 4 on the roof top. I had the same bird’s eye view as you that night so let’s just agree that if we were pigeons we would have dumped all over the Red Sox that night.

I hope you, as I did, stayed for the end of game when out of the original crowd of 37,000 only about 3,700 stuck around in the ballpark.

What in the name of Sweet Caroline is going on here!!!??? We’re going to finish in last friggin’ place for the third time in four years! Sing this … Not so good. Not so good. Not so good.

This is getting wicked hard to take. If it is your intention to be in first place, you can’t get there from here.

John, you need to do something to stop this. Your general manager’s eye for talent appears about as sharp as Stevie Wonder’s. Your field manager is gaining a reputation as being Charmin soft.

The only people in New England happy about all this are the managers of 99 Restaurants who promise that kids eat free following a Red Sox win. They probably have a surplus of chicken fingers and French fries.

The only thing saving you right now from harsher criticism is Tom Brady. DeflateGate has distracted New England sports fans, diverting their attention from how bad your team sucks.

The game that we both saw starting pitcher Rick Porcello was gone sooner the fresh lobster at Roy Moore’s Lobster Shack.  He couldn’t get a single out in the third inning and his exit was about as well received in Boston as Roger Goodell. Porcello was booed so loudly that the Fenway Park organist couldn’t drown it out.

Yet we gave Porcello a new four-year, $82.5 million contract before he even pitched a game in a Red Sox uniform!!!??

Lest I remind you, Dear John, that this is just another in a line of poor decisions and evaluations by your crack team of baseball people led by your GM Ben Cherington. Who was the last GM to guide his team to three last-place finishes and keep his job? Ted Turner? The best thing Ben has done in that span is deke the Dodgers into taking Carl Crawford off our hands and payroll.

Yes, Ben won a World Series in 2013 and I suppose we should be eternally grateful for that, but it appears that championship was about as much of an aberration as Brian Williams’ stay behind the anchor desk at NBC.

Really?

This is the man in charge of all the talent evaluation in the entire organization and yet here we stand 14 games behind the Yankees and far behind lesser talented teams such as the Minnesota Twins, Cleveland Indians and Charlestown Chiefs. Heck, the Tampa Bay Rays operate on a budget a fraction of ours and we can’t catch them in the standings.

Yet we are last in the American League in runs allowed and earned runs scored.

Evaluation? Did Ben or any of your talent evaluators do their homework about Pablo Sandoval? I could have advised you on that one. He was a diva in the Giants’ clubhouse and a platinum Dining Club member away from it. He is more expensive than Chubby’s Fried Clam Platter at Woodman’s in Essex. The Kung Fu Panda is a King-Sized Panda and the only way he is going to be productive in the lineup is if you bat him between Jenny Craig and Chris Powell.

Rule of thumb: It’s never a good idea to give a fat contract to a fat man. Good luck with that for the next four years. Maybe you ought to check under third base because you may find Hot Pockets hidden at the hot corner. He left the game we attended due to “dehydration” after running from first to home when third base coach Brian Butterfield, with his team trailing 6-0 at the time, decided to the wave the Panda home.

And how bout Hanley Ramirez? Nice strategic move sticking him in left field. He tracks flyballs as if they were Frisbees. The only place you can stick him now is as a Designated Hitter because hitting is all he seems to care about, but you have David Ortiz locked into that spot and he seems more interested in his legacy than his team wallowing in last place.

Rudney Castillo? A year ago you spent $72 million to sign him and today Ben floated him through the waiver wire!!!??? He’s gone from an elite prospect to Filene’s Basement. Ben has some explaining to do about this Cuban outfielder who has been shuffled from Pawtucket to Boston like traffic through the drive-thru at Dunkin Donuts.

This is ridiculous. This is embarrassing. Do something about it! I spent almost $500 for my family of four to see your team play on July 29 and have never been so disgusted. The most beleaguered team in baseball is inhabiting the most beloved ballpark in America.

You owe me. I’m not talking about the $500. My investment in the Red Sox goes deeper and longer than that. So should yours.