Boston’s good, bad, and ugly

With the NBA and NHL seasons over, Major League Baseball still in its first month and draft day approaching in the NFL, it seems a good time to assess Boston’s big league teams – and the Bruins, too.

The Red Sox entered Thursday’s play with baseball’s best record, one forged on starting pitching. As in their magic year of 2004, the Sox have two aces in Curt Schilling and Josh Beckett. If that duo stays healthy and the bullpen holds up its end, be it with Jonathan Papelbon or Keith Foulke as the closer, the team will loom as a favorite to reach the World Series – which it should be given its payroll that ranks second in the big leagues only to the New York Yankees.

No, the hitting depth may not rival 2004, but once Manny starts being Manny and Coco Crisp returns to good health, there is offense enough.

And the defense is better.

The Patriots, meanwhile, made one of the biggest moves of the NFL offseason by reaching a contract extension with defensive stalwart Richard Seymour. That deal assures that Bill Belichick’s bunch will have one of the league’s top run defenses for the next few years, given that the entire defensive front – Vince Wilfork, Ty Warren, Jarvis Green and Marquise Hill included – is signed through 2009.

There is some work to be done as draft day nears. Outside linebacker, wide receiver, secondary and a tailback of the future are all areas of need.

Then there’s the matter of replacing Adam Vinatieri, the Super Bowl hero who will be kicking field goals next fall for – egad! – the Indianapolis Colts.

Martin Dramatica, I mean Gramatica, has been signed to compete for the job, though it’s just as likely next season’s placekicker isn’t on the roster yet.

But Tom Brady is, and that combined with the strength of the defensive front seven means the Patriots’ fall from its status as dynasty of the decade will not be long term.

The Celtics just concluded their worst season since a 15-win campaign in 1997 that should have landed them Tim Duncan in the draft but instead netted them Chauncey Billups a few years before his time and Ron Mercer, who peaked at the University of Kentucky.

Nine years later another youth movement is in full swing, a fact that gave the Celtics a pass in the public’s eye for this year’s inconsistency.

But with one of the league’s 10 best players in Paul Pierce, a key complementary forward in Wally Szczerbiak and such young guns as Delonte West, Al Jefferson, Kendrick Perkins, Ryan Gomes and high-flying teen Gerald Green, next year demands a return to the playoffs, and real contention in the NBA’s Eastern Conference.

If not, someone will have to take the fall. Coach Doc Rivers likely would leave on his own with another playoff miss, unless head honcho Danny Ainge makes a pre-emptive strike and fires Rivers before his own status becomes imperiled.

As for the Bruins, here’s one guarantee: They will average 2.8 goals a game next season just like they did this season, and last season, and the season before that.

The Bruins had a chance to remake their roster during the most recent extended off-season, but some poor personnel decisions and their tendency to do everything on the cheap has left them as the definition of mediocrity. They hustle, they scrap, but they lack the depth of talent to generate offense, and to win close games.

To paraphrase Belichick, they are what they are – at least until the ownership changes.

Ernie Clark may be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or eclark@bangordailynews.net