Pedroia not concerned by Red Sox shaky start: 'We're not a .500 team'

Warning: Story contains coarse language

Regardless of what Dustin Pedroia says, the Boston Red Sox record at the moment is at the .500 mark.

Nevertheless, Pedroia is fully convinced that his team is better than what Beantown fans are watching right now. On Saturday, the Red Sox struggles continued in an 8-3 loss to the Oakland Athletics that saw the A's tee off for four home runs to drop the New England side back to the even mark at 21-21.

Despite the talent surrounding Pedroia in the Boston clubhouse, the team is simply spinning its wheels after seven weeks of play. But the former AL MVP remains convinced that the Red Sox current record is nothing but an aberration that will be fixed.

"As players you put your head down and play. We're not a .500 team," Pedroia told Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe after Saturday's game. "It looks like that. It is right now. You play 162 (games). See ya at the end."

Indeed, the Red Sox have shown some signs that a turnaround could come. Chris Sale is setting records, Craig Kimbrel is back to his old self in the ninth inning, and Mookie Betts has gotten going at the plate - but too much is also going wrong at this moment.

Last year's vaunted offensive attack has struggled as a unit: much-heralded rookie Andrew Benintendi has struggled of late, Hanley Ramirez is only now starting to heat up a little bit, and no Red Sox hitter has more than seven home runs; starting shortstop Xander Bogaerts, who homered 21 times in 2016, hasn't hit one yet. There's also the matter of injuries, a carousel of third basemen, and the rest of the rotation, which, simply put, hasn't been good.

Pedroia has won two World Series in Boston, and knows what it takes to succeed in that kind of high-pressure market. While his analogy of choice was strange, the 33-year-old remains convinced that this group of Red Sox will shake all of this inconsistency off and get back into contention quickly.

"As a player in this environment, there's ups and downs," Pedroia said. "The down are you're lower than as low as be. Whale shit? I don't know. Then the highest is you're the greatest of all time.

"You've got to stay even, man, and we intend on doing that."