Red Sox Still Struggling With September Collapse Dave Reginek/Getty Images The Boston Red Sox, who collapsed in September, have started 1-5. Their home opener is Friday. BOSTON - The calendar says that the home opener for the 2012 Boston Red Sox will be played on Friday the 13th. In a sense, that's perfect. In reality, however, the operative date for the first game of the season at Fenway Park seems more like Sept. That's because the Red Sox have somehow managed to pick up exactly where they left off last year, when they engaged in a mind-bending collapse that led to weeks and weeks of revelations and recriminations. Seven months later, the tailspin continues. The Red Sox team that went 7-20 in September 2011 is now 1-5 this season, and when the Red Sox take the field Friday to open Fenway Park's 100th-anniversary season, there could be a chorus of boos and more than a few references to another 100th anniversary this weekend, the sinking of the Titanic. And not to be impolite, but also up for discussion will be the team's shaky starting rotation, battered bullpen, struggling lineup and new manager, who was not the first choice of the new general manager. A new manager, who, by the way, has a weekly radio gig in New York, of all places. "This team has gone from unlikable to hateable," said the radio talk-show host Andy Gresh of the Sports Hub at 98.5 FM in Boston. From what I'm hearing from our listeners, they are hurt and they remain amazed that they are starting this year the same way they ended last year. Boston's finish in 2011 represented a collapse of historic proportions, with the team blowing a nine-game lead in the wild-card race and finishing out of the playoffs. As if that weren't enough, what followed the collapse might have been worse, with disclosures about players drinking beer and eating chicken in the clubhouse during games, with the departures of Manager Terry Francona and General Manager Theo Epstein, and with an off-season in which the team's ownership appeared to channel its inner San Diego Padres by zealously guarding its bottom line. Then came the arrival of the visible and vocal Bobby Valentine as the manager, although Dale Sveum was actually the choice of the new general manger, Ben Cherington. Sveum instead went to the Chicago Cubs, the first choice of Epstein, who took over at Wrigley Field after he bolted Boston. That the Cubs have lost five of their first seven games, a start almost as bad as Boston's, comes as little consolation to Red Sox fans. They have watched their team get outscored, 38-22, and the pitching looks as poor as it was last September. The team is without two of its 2011 five-man rotation because of serious injuries (John Lackey and Daisuke Matsuzaka). The replacement for the reliable closer Jonathan Papelbon, Andrew Bailey, is out for months after thumb surgery. Papelbon's mostly reliable setup man in 2011, Daniel Bard, is a starter, at least for the moment. And the bullpen, or what passes for one, blew a three-run lead in the ninth inning against Detroit last Sunday and then a two-run lead in the 11th. All of this has led to the usual feelings of angst and agita - "the drama will always be there," asserts Jon Meterparel of WEEI, the team's flagship radio station - as well as a competing sense of what could implausibly be described as apathy. Yes, there will be another sellout Friday, and plenty more to come at Fenway, where every seat has been sold for more than 700 straight games. But a Boston Globe metro columnist wrote this week that he had two tickets for opening day and could find no takers. "The stench of last September still prevails," Meterparel said. It definitely has not gone away. People are still bitter - and they should be. But Meterparel said that while "we do have our share of anxious callers, it's not cranked up to the level you would expect." Maria Flanagan, an educational software designer, was so upset over the way the Francona departure occurred that she vowed not to buy any Red Sox merchandise for Christmas gifts. She made good on her pledge. Once a die-hard Sox fan, Flanagan didn't even bother showing up to get the 2012 tickets she had won on an online auction that the team runs. "Apathy is a perfect description for the way I feel," Flanagan said. I really haven't watched a minute of them so far this year. I couldn't be bothered, really. Valentine, in his appearance on Thursday on ESPN 1050 in New York, remained steadfastly upbeat. Of the team's fans, he said, "I hear a lot more words of support than anything else." But the man he replaced, Francona, isn't feeling so benign. He feels Red Sox management betrayed him last fall, and told The Globe this week that he had turned down an invitation to attend the April 20 celebration of Fenway's 100th anniversary. "I just can't go back there and start hugging people and stuff without feeling a little bit hypocritical," he said. Play ball.