It hasn’t taken new Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine long to create some drama within the organization.

After the Red Sox started the season 1-5 and fans were already writing the team off, Boston has now won three in a row against the Tampa Bay Rays.

The boys from Beantown have found their batting strokes and scored 31 runs in the first three games of the four-game series.

All of the players have been hitting, including Kevin Youkilis. Youk, as the fans passionately call him, started the season roughly, striking out seven times in the first seven games and only walking twice. Tampa seems to have relieved him of that appalling beginning, as he is now batting .400 in the series.

Still, that didn’t stop Valentine from opening his mouth and causing potential drama.

After Boston’s 6-4 win against Tampa Bay on Sunday, a reporter asked Valentine about Youkilis’ slow start and how he has seemed to turn it around. Valentine, without pause, told the media that Youkilis didn’t seem to be physically or mentally into the game for the first six or seven starts of the season.

The reporter followed up his question, asking Valentine if he knew why Youkilis has seemed to have calmed his intensity, which in the past has been a clubhouse distraction. At one point, it led to a fight between Youkilis and Manny Ramirez after Ramirez punched him in the dugout.

Valentine said he couldn’t answer that because he basically didn’t know Youkilis well enough and didn’t have a point of reference to which he could compare the old Youkilis with the new.

That’s odd, considering just a few seconds before he seemed to know enough about Youkilis to question his desire and attitude.

The Red Sox organization hired Valentine this season after firing Terry Francona in September. Boston fired Francona, who managed Boston to World Series titles in 2004 (the team’s first since 1918) and 2007, in the fall after one of the worst September collapses in baseball history.

Stories appeared in the days, weeks and months following the horrendous season’s end, accusing ballplayers of eating chicken and drinking beer prior to games and hinted at a lack of organizational control. One story even went as far as to claim that Francona was abusing prescription painkillers. The Red Sox were a mess.

Cue Valentine. He is a manager known for his fiery temper and public arguments with players and management. Francona was known as a player’s manager who befriended the team. Valentine is his opposite and is known as a demanding leader.

It seems that he has targeted Youkilis, but the question is why. Youkilis has been one of Boston’s best hitters since he joined the club in 2004. He is a fan favorite as well. Valentine perhaps wanted to set a fire under Youkilis and get him to continue playing well. Maybe Valentine didn’t think before he spoke. Or maybe he knew exactly what he was saying.

In late March, former Boston pitcher and now ESPN baseball analyst Curt Schilling said the Boston players don’t like Valentine and are “rolling” their eyes at him. No one knows with whom Schilling spoke, but some rumors point to Youkilis. If that’s the case, maybe this is Valentine’s way of pay back.

Whatever the case is, he’s created an open-mouth-and-insert-foot dilemma that this team doesn’t need.

Boston needs to focus on baseball and finding ways to win ball games.

Many fans have called radio talk shows in Maine and Boston questioning Valentine’s hire from the start of the season. They don’t know if he will last more than a year, and some think he is some sort of ploy to distract Red Sox nation’s attention away from last September.

Whatever reason he’s there, we will never know, but it’s already clear that fans and the Red Sox could be in for a long, long season.

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Today’s editorial was written by Sports Editor Al Edwards on behalf of the Journal Tribune Editorial Board. Questions? Comments? Contact Managing Editor Kristen Schulze Muszynski by calling 282-1535, Ext. 322, or via email at kristenm@journaltribune.com.