The Red Sox’ season has taken a turn for the worse and it doesn’t seem like it will get better any time soon.

Boston’s bullpen blew a nine-run lead to the New York Yankees on Saturday afternoon, which prompted Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine to say that the team had hit rock bottom.

Sometimes, a team needs to hit that mark before it can rebound, but Boston seems to have crash landed on the rocks below.

Since September, Red Sox fans have wallowed in watching subpar play as they witnessed their team’s historic collapse in the fall, when it blew a first-place lead and finished 7-20, missing the playoffs.

This season, fans had renewed hope that last year’s collapse was an aberration ”“ a mirage that came on because of players eating fried chicken and drinking beer before the games in September that contributed heavily to the collapse.

The Red Sox fired manager Terry Francona and hired Valentine, despite Francona having led the team to two World Series titles in seven seasons.

For a while, the team was okay. It was a new season and the problems were solved.

Now the Red Sox are 4-10 to start the season and have the worst pitching staff in the major leagues.

Fans can look at the relief staff and say it’s the reason the team is 4-10, but even the starting pitchers, such as Jon Lester, Clay Bucholz and Josh Beckett, have been deplorable.

Both Bucholz and Beckett have allowed five home runs in a game this season. Lester hasn’t been awful, but he hasn’t won a game yet either. When the ace of your staff can’t win, there is a problem. Lester also has an ERA of 5.82 and Beckett’s ERA is 5.03. Bucholz’s ERA is 9.00. The best pitcher for Boston is the fourth starter, Felix Doubrant. In three starts, he is 0-3 with a 3.94 ERA.

The new dilemma now is what to do with fifth starter, Daniel Bard. Valentine announced on Sunday that Bard, who Boston made a starter at the beginning of the year, would pitch out of the bullpen on Monday and Tuesday, but would still make his scheduled start on Friday.

Valentine said it’s common for a team’s fifth starter to also give bullpen help. While that’s true, the difference here is that Boston’s bullpen is not playing well.

Red Sox closer Alfredo Aceves has an earned run average of 24. That is not a misprint. He is allowing 24 runs per nine innings pitched.

The Red Sox shipped Mark Melancon back to Triple-A after he started the season in relief with an 0-2 record, zero saves and a 49.50 ERA.

Bard could be a long-term starter in the future, but for now it seems obvious that the Red Sox need his help in the bullpen. The team had groomed him as the eighth-inning setup man last season for Jonathan Papelbon. Papelbon, who had closed for Boston since 2007, is now with the Philadelphia Phillies. Aceves was his replacement, but the Sox need to put Bard into the closer’s role if they have any chance of salvaging this season.

The only element that Boston seems to have working so far this season is its defense. The Red Sox have only committed four errors in 14 games, which puts them at the top of the major leagues.

Offensively, the Sox aren’t that bad, either. David Ortiz is leading the league with a .436 batting average and teammate Ryan Sweeney is batting .390. Ortiz also has eight doubles and Sweeney has seven.

As a team, Boston is batting a respectable .276. The problem, however, goes back to its pitching, as the staff is allowing more hits than any other team in the league. Teams are batting a .336 against the Red Sox.

Last season, experts pegged Boston as one of the best teams to ever be assembled. This year, those same experts picked the Red Sox to finish somewhere in the middle of the league, but no one saw this pitching start coming.

There are still 147 games left ”“ plenty of time to right the ship. The Sox have been lucky as all of the American League East teams have started slowly and Boston is only four games back in the division despite its auspicious beginning.

If something doesn’t drastically change in the pitching department, however, Boston could easily finish as the worst team in baseball this 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.