ARLINGTON, Texas – OK, it’s early. The Red Sox have played all of two games, or about 1.2 percent of a full baseball season. So the fact that they got shelled by the Rangers, 12-5, in the second game of the year (recap) ultimately means little.

Even so, it would be difficult to exaggerate how bad the Sox – and more particularly, Red Sox pitchers – have looked in the first two games of the season. It would have been one thing to take a couple of losses to start the season. But it’s another to get absolutely smoked.

And that is precisely what happened on Saturday. One day after Jon Lester had one of the worst starts of his career – no strikeouts, three homers – John Lackey was even worse.

He had a strong second half of 2010 upon which the Sox anticipated he would build. The right-hander had what everyone around the Sox characterized as a strong spring. He showed up in camp having shed about a dozen pounds, and the Sox were enthusiastic about the life on his full ensemble of pitches.

And then, he took the mound for his first start of 2011 and...the Rangers beat him like a piñata.

Lackey threw just 3 2/3 innings – his second lowest total as a member of the Sox. He gave up nine runs – most as a Sox, tied for second most in his career. He gave up seven extra-base hits – a new career high.

And he managed to get hammered in diverse fashion, permitting a “double cycle” – two or more each of every kind of hit, with three singles, three doubles, two triples and two homers – in his brief outing. The last Sox pitcher to get hit in such fashion was Luis Tiant in 1974.

Lackey rued the fact that he “wasn’t able to close anything out.” He had gotten two quick outs in the fourth inning when the Rangers suddenly blitzed him for six runs, including a grand slam by ex-Sox third baseman Adrian Beltre following an intentional walk to Josh Hamilton to load the bases. (For more on that decision, click here.)

The disastrous inning featured a little of everything: Players getting hits while ahead in the count, Rangers delivering two-strike hits, missed locations (most notably on the Beltre grand slam), hits that just barely eluded Sox fielders (for instance, a Yorvit Torrealba double that kicked off the glove of a diving Jacoby Ellsbury on the warning track).

There were moments when Lackey appeared to make pitches that could get him out of the jams. But ultimately, the Rangers refused to permit him any escape, leading to his startling final line.

Lackey tried to maintain perspective after his poor outing.

“I expect to do well every time I pitch. It’s a shock when something like this happens, for sure. It sucks, but it’s one game,” said Lackey. “You just wipe this one away and go back to work, get my work in between starts, and go get ‘em the next one.”

On the bright side for Lackey, he won’t be pitching in Texas or against the Rangers again any time soon. He is now 11-13 with a 6.07 ERA in 34 career starts against Texas, and 6-6 with a 6.78 ERA in Arlington. He’s been worse since the start of the 2008 campaign, getting hit to a .369 average by the Rangers with a 2-5 record and 8.39 ERA.

“They’ve always had a good lineup since I’ve been in the league,” said Lackey. “That was my first start of my career here, and they had a few Hall of Famers in that lineup. They’ve always had a pretty good lineup.”

The Ballpark at Arlington has always been a tremendous hitter’s park, but the Rangers have taken that notion to absurd extremes in the first two games of the year. They’ve been more – far more – than just “pretty good” in scoring 21 runs through two games.

The Sox have now allowed nine or more runs in back-to-back games to start the season for the first time since 1980. The Rangers are hitting .342 with seven homers and a 1.182 OPS in these two games. Ian Kinsler made baseball history by leading off his team’s first two games of the season with homers.

Again, the Sox are mindful of the idea that they need not overreact to a couple of bad games. Nonetheless, even they have been a bit taken aback by what has transpired.

“That team is just on fire right now. They’re just hitting everything, pretty much, it feels like,” said catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia. “They’re just hitting like crazy.

“Right now it seems like everything we throw, they’re hitting. Maybe tomorrow we’ll put the rosin bag in play,” he said with a smile. “I don’t know.”

The Sox haven’t had many answers in their first two games, aside from the idea that there are more games – 160 more in the regular season, to be precise – to be played. As bad as the defeats were, the team still sees little need to react to outcomes that might otherwise be greeted with a shrug in the middle of the year.

“We’re not going to hit the panic button. It’s two games into the season,” said Saltalamacchia. “Obviously it’s not what we’re hoping for, but that’s what I think makes this team so good. We’re going to bounce back. It’s two games. It happens. It’s not the end of season. We’re going to go out there and continue to do what we do. Our pitching staff is too good, and our hitters are too good. Just forget about it and move on.”

“They’re going to make their adjustments and it will get better,” David Ortiz added about the pitching staff. “I guarantee that.”

As guarantees go, this wasn’t exactly stepping out on a limb. It would be hard, after all, to imagine the performance of the pitchers getting worse.