There’s no need to dance around the subject. The Red Sox starting pitching through eight games — and seven losses — has been horrible, a trend that continued when the Yankees pounded Clay Buchholz and the Sox pitching staff in a 9-4 victory on Saturday. (Recap.)

Buchholz, who did not give up as many as four extra-base hits in any of his 28 starts last year, accomplished that feat for the second straight start on Saturday. The Yankees knocked him out of the game after 3 2/3 innings that witnessed three doubles, a homer, eight total hits, three walks and a whopping 92 pitches.

Yet Buchholz has not been alone. Through eight starts, the rotation as a whole has been pounded, with Buchholz (0-2, 7.20 ERA) and John Lackey (1-1, 15.58 ERA) leading the way. The string of poor performances clearly has been frustrating for the Sox to endure.

“We’ve got to pitch better, man. [The Yankees] have a great offense, but we can’t give up a lot of runs. It’s tough to score 10, you know what I mean?” said second baseman Dustin Pedroia. “We’ll come out tomorrow and keep playing. That’s what we’ve got to do. There’s really nothing you can say.”

That succinct analysis was on point, but at the risk of beating the proverbial dead horse, here is a breakdown of the Sox’ starting woes:

ERA: 7.46 (worst in the majors)

HR allowed: 12 (most in the majors — and a number that matches the combined yield of the other four AL East rotations)

Walks: 20 (most in the majors)

Opponents’ OBP: .385 (second to last in the majors)

Opponents’ slugging: .635 (worst in the majors)

Opponents’ OPS: 1.020 (worst in the majors)

Quality starts: 1 (tied for worst in the majors)

Hits per nine innings: 10.98 (27th in the majors)

Strikeouts per nine innings: 5.5 (23rd)

Walks per nine innings: 4.4 (second worst in the majors)

Strikeout-to-walk ratio: 1.3 (second worst in the majors)

Yes, it’s early, and yes, it’s only been eight games. That context is important. As bad as the Sox rotation looks now, it is not beyond reason that the starting staff could emerge as one of the better ones in the game. As such, the Sox were trying to be mindful of the need to avoid overreacting to a very poor stretch of games in early April.

“We’re not even two turns through. I don’t think it’s been a very good first time and a half through the rotation,” said Sox manager Terry Francona. “[But] I don’t think we’re going to pack it in.”

Nor should they. But, even while accounting for the fact that the baseball season remains in its infancy, the whole point of stacking a rotation with All-Stars (Buchholz (2010), Lackey (2007), Jon Lester (2010) and Josh Beckett (2007, 2009) have all been honored with All-Star berths) who are in or near their primes is that these sorts of runs are almost never supposed to occur, whether in April or August.

“It’s surprising,” acknowledged David Ortiz. “We’ve got one of the best rotations in the game.”

That, at least, is the theory. Yet in practice, the team has not performed like that.

Buchholz' disappointing start has been particularly noteworthy. The Sox hoped that he would build upon his fantastic 2010 campaign; to date, he has been unable to reproduce the magic that characterized his dominant performance last year.

In 2010, he allowed just nine homers in 173 2/3 innings; in 2011, he has permitted five homers in 10 frames. In 2010, he did not allow as many as four extra-base hits in any of his 28 starts; in 2011, he has allowed four extra-base hits in both of his two starts this year. Buchholz allowed as many as four earned runs in just four outings last year, a feat he has already accomplished twice this year.

The Sox insist that the young right-hander's stuff remains outstanding. Indeed, Buchholz maintained that line of thinking after his loss on Saturday. 

That said, while execution has clearly been the right-hander's foremost issue, it has also been natural for questions (related to Buchholz and the rest of the Sox pitching staff) to be raised about whether the Sox are enduring a challenge with the transition to a new everyday catcher (Jarrod Saltalamacchia) and pitching coach (Curt Young).

But the Sox downplayed that notion, suggesting that what happens on the mound is not dictated by the changes in personnel elsewhere on the team.

“It’s a grind right now. We’re in a rut that we’ve got to get ourselves out of, and the only way to get out of it is to keep playing, keep going out there and pitching,” said Saltalamacchia. “Curt is new, but he’s got great stuff. He’s really a student. He does a great job on the scouting reports. With our caliber of pitching, there’s no reason we should be going through stuff like this. The only way is getting through it is getting on the mound.”

“Getting on the same page with everyone, Curt’s brought in a pretty good bit of knowledge to us and me in general. I don’t think there’s anything to do with that,” added Buchholz. “It’s a matter of going out there and executing the pitches like we did last year.”

Eventually, talent tends to win out on the baseball field. The Sox believe that they are better than what their early-season struggles suggest, and that eventually the results will indicate as much. Even so, while the offense has dealt with its own inconsistencies through the start of the season, the failure of the starters to deliver even two quality starts at this stage of the season has led to a turbulent entry into the 2011 season for Boston.

It is not just that the Sox will likely improve on the early results. They badly need to do so, and soon, in order to escape their unexpected early-season hole.

“I know this team’s better than what our record is right now,” said Buchholz. “We’re battling right now, trying to find ways to win games, and it’s going to start with us, the starters, going out there and giving some innings to where you can keep the team in the game.”