Imagine, you spend more than anyone in Major League Baseball, nearly twice the league average, and your season hangs on the thrice-surgically repaired elbow of Nathan Eovaldi.

These are your $240 million, Wild Card-bound, trail-the-Yankees-by-11-games-on-July-1 Boston Red Sox.

Honestly, it’s going to take more than Eovaldi to save this bunch. His elbow might only be the third most fragile wing on this pitching staff, what with Chris Sale’s usual September slumber and David Price’s elbow laced with enough explosives to splatter cartilage from Kenmore Square to Charlestown every time he unloads a pitch.

Only the Red Sox – well, the Yanks and Dodgers, too – could take a guy with a four-year, $68 million man and banish him to the pen out of sheer

desperation.

The truth is, it’s not just the bullpen.

Boston hasn’t hit in the clutch or, for that matter, defended in the clutch, either.

That fact was driven home across the pond when outs were at an absolute premium the Boston middle failed to turn a pair of late double plays in the London slo-pitch invitational with the Yanks. And then Michael Chavis got beat five-hole to open the floodgates for a nine-run inning.

Eovaldi is to be admired, not for his mound work but for his guts shown pitching into the wee small hours of the morning last October in the loss to the Dodgers. He’s also to be rewarded for a great agent, one who somehow swindled the Sox in the offseason to the tune of nearly $70 million guaranteed.

But he’s not the savior. He’s not even the answer.

He’s a swing for the fences … blindfolded.

STRAY SHOTS

Far be it from me to champion common sense, but why didn’t the Red Sox and Yankees each surrender a home game? Why did Boston lose two home games? And no, this is not commiserating with management or the upper class. I’m in for the little people, the hot dog vendors, the “peanuts, pistachios, cashews,” guy who were forced to give up 1-41st of their income. …

How much cash are big time sports owners making? Damien Lillard just signed a four-year, $49 million extension with the Portland Trail Blazers? This is no shot at Lillard. Congrats. But Portland didn’t even blink at $196 million. Wow. …

If the rumors are true that Kansas City Chiefs alleged child abuse Tyreek Hill won’t be suspended more than four games by the NFL, I expect to see Josh Gordon in a Patriots lineup on opening night vs. Pittsburgh.

How can Roger Goodell justify that? That’s gross, NFL. Hill should be put in the clink, never mind the Week 5 Chiefs lineup. …

And finally, if Demarcus Cousins even gets a text from the Celtics, Danny Ainge should be fired.

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