Curb your enthusiasm Early season bugaboos — like indecisive handling of the bullpen — are enough to lower the expectations of the most ardent Red Sox followers BY CHIP YOUNG

As the old saying goes, a camel is a horse created by a committee.

Certainly, Boston Red Sox manager Grady Little would find it hard to argue with this description. His now-infamous " bullpen by committee " has become the newest joke in baseball, with members of the BoSox committee taking turns adding their two cents around the conference table — with results that make last year’s closer, Ugueth Urbina, look like a take-charge, I’ll-handle-this-myself chairman of the board.

When Chad Fox blew up against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the opener, you could feel shoulders slump all over New England. When the rest of the pen came up with similarly disappointing performances — even though the Sox rallied to win — the disappointment became angst, especially after Fox self-immolated again in Baltimore, walking in the winning run in the ninth after Boston forgot to score some runs for Pedro Martinez, who got another no-decision after a good outing. But except for Little, no one expected Fox and some of the other lesser lights on the committee, such as Brandon Lyon, to make huge contributions in the grassy boardroom.

Not so Ramiro Mendoza, regarded by fans of the Olde Towne Team as valuable stolen property after being signed away from the Yankees. Unless George Steinbrenner sent an impostor up Route 95 in Mendoza’s place, the former New York set-up man has been atrocious, coming into Fenway for the first time with a 12.00 ERA. Take that, new Boston stat boy Bill James.

Compounding the bullpen problems has been the erratic performance of the starters. Derek Lowe looked like he had skipped spring training in his first two outings. Casey Fossum flattered to deceive by starting games out strong and then getting a head cramp in the mid-innings. And while Pedro did his best to quell the queasiness, his personal record-setting 10 earned runs, conceded in the home opener against the Orioles, had people checking to make sure they were taking the right meds.

This is not a good sign in an American League East where the Yanks have proven the adage that good pitching beats good hitting.

Here’s another bad sign. As we head into mid-April, with the exception of talking about the bullpen by committee before making the sign of the cross, there is more chatter about sideshows than any other aspect of the Red Sox. Rocco Baldelli of Tampa Bay is the local kid made good, grabbing headlines because of his Little Rhody roots and the way in which he’s tearing up the league, making vets like Grady Little swoon.

Likewise, the seats atop the Green Monster, which have drawn more media attention than anything but Baldelli’s Boston bow. Screw the fact Jeremy Giambi has the range in the field of a robot. How about the idea of sitting on a barstool with vertigo for four hours?

It’s hard to imagine how a team with such talent — the American League’s leading hitter in 2002, Manny " The Hairdo " Ramirez; the second best shortstop in baseball, Nomar Garciaparra; and two of the top-three AL pitchers last year (one a certified Hall of Famer), Lowe and Martinez — doesn’t have the region buzzing. Maybe that’s what ungodly spring weather, a 7-5 record, and arsonists in the bullpen do to the fans.

In what is becoming a seemingly typical start to the season, the B-list players are again leading the team at the plate. Free spirit Kevin Millar and former phenom Trot Nixon, now the old workhorse, are both hitting over .350, while " Double A Shea " Hillenbrand is among the early RBI leaders. But we know we can’t possible keep the popular Hillenbrand, because James and his disciple, boy GM Chad Epstein, don’t think he has enough patience at the plate. Right, like Nomar does.

Little is also building another juggling act, making it hard for us to become attached to a team with an amorphous starting lineup, except for leaning on the stars and tradition. Unfortunately, the tradition hasn’t yielded a World Series victory since the fat dead-end kid from Baltimore with a taste for hot dogs and gin was pitching and playing the field, in more ways than one. Maybe it’s a case of burnout — finally — that is making fans curb their enthusiasm. Certainly, when the players behave with the pessimistic, red-ass attitude of Larry David, as always seems to be the case with Ramirez, Pedro (when he’s talking money), and Garciaparra (when the team is fading down the stretch), we’re taking our cues from HBO.

We are in for a losing year, unless Martinez and Lowe repeat their 2002 performance, Fossum steps up, Tim Wakefield doesn’t sulk, Mendoza resembles the sinkerball killer he was in the Bronx, and the rest of our little committee out in right field starts realizing that horses don’t have humps on their backs. Oh, and did we mention that Todd Walker, Bill Mueller, Damian Jackson, and David Ortiz have to start emulating Millar, Nixon, and Hillenbrand, or the BoSox don’t have a chance at anything better than second place in the AL East? I thought we hadn’t gone there. And that doesn’t guarantee a wild card anymore.

One thing may be worth watching. If the concentration on stats does actually pan out — and I was a huge fan of James’s early practical and applicable analyses — and the front office purse strings are loose enough to pick up late summer help on both the mound and at the plate, it might start people talking . . . and cheering. If not, look for a lot of features on opposing players and elevated seats.

Or even worse for Red Sox fans, the Yankees.

AL East

NY Yankees

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Toronto

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Tampa Bay

AL Central

Minnesota

Kansas City

Chicago

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Detroit

AL West

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Anaheim

Seattle

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NL East

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Philadelphia

Montreal*

Florida

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NL Central

St. Louis

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NL West

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Colorado

San Diego

* There is nothing cooler in sports this year than the Expos electing to play 22 home games in Puerto Rico.