It started as a day of coronation for Adrian Gonzalez as a player worthy of joining the $100 million club, and ended with doubts about whether another player who will receive comparable piles of cash from the Red Sox can earn his keep.

No player should be subjected to a snap judgment of his abilities based on a 12-game stretch. Yet that is the unavoidable reality for Sox outfielder Carl Crawford.

The 29-year-old is in his first year in Boston following his offseason decision as a free agent to sign a seven-year, $142 million deal. And given that these dozen games represent his only experience in a Red Sox uniform, New England has been left somewhat vexed by the three-time All-Star.

Actually, vexed is likely too polite a term after he went 0-for-5 with an ugly three-pitch strikeout in the ninth inning of Boston’s 7-6 loss to the Blue Jays (recap). The boos that cascaded upon the outfielder at Fenway Park suggested as much. For his part, Crawford took no umbrage at the fans who are already voicing their displeasure with his performance.

“They have to boo. I'm playing real bad -- and we're playing real bad as a team,” said Crawford. “You definitely understand. You can't be upset about that. You feel their frustration a little bit. We're frustrated, too.”

The hitless night dropped Crawford’s average to .137 with a .342 OPS. Among the 207 hitters who qualify for the batting title, Crawford ranks 202nd in batting average, 205th in OBP (.185) and 206th in OPS (ahead of only Vernon Wells, the player whom the Angels acquired when Crawford shunned them in free agency).

His night got off to a bad start in the first, when Crawford appeared to beat out an infield single to second but was called out by first base umpire Paul Nauert.

"That's just the way it's going for me right now,” he shrugged. “I've just got to weather the storm and keep on fighting."

To his credit, Crawford has remained committed to the routine and extraordinary work ethic that has been a crucial element of his big league success. And he has remained accountable for his performance throughout his season-opening slump, earning the support and respect of his new teammates.

Even so, that has made it no easier for them to watch what is transpiring. It is not a question of whether Crawford is pressing at this point, but rather an issue of whether the situation can get any worse, and whether Crawford can relax to the point where his natural abilities will become evident.

To this point, he appears to be in a process of sabotaging himself. After working for years to become more selective at the plate and improving his ability to identify and attack the pitches he can drive, Crawford is swinging at almost everything.

He is currently batting in a leadoff spot in which he’s enjoyed little career success and that further draws the spotlight to his well-paid struggles. Thus far – at least for now – there has been little evidence of Crawford’s suitability for a top-of-the-order position.

Indeed, he has been the antithesis of an ideal leadoff man, featuring a “jumpy” approach (in the words of manager Terry Francona) that has Crawford swinging early, often and without impact. On Friday, Crawford led off the first with a two-pitch at-bat, and followed that with plate appearances of three, one, five and three pitches.

He hasn’t walked in 29 plate appearances since becoming a leadoff hitter; Friday, in fact, marked just the second time that he saw a three-ball count in the role. He is seeing a staggeringly low 2.97 pitchers per plate appearance as the Sox’ leadoff man, while hitting .107 with a .138 OBP, .143 slugging mark and .281 OPS.

While it seemed that Francona wanted to leave Crawford in that spot – perhaps to give him some stability, and in an effort to demonstrate continued faith in the outfielder – the Sox skipper acknowledged that the strategy of having Crawford bat at the top of the order may require reassessment.

"That’s probably something I probably need to sit and talk with him about because the last thing I want to do is hinder somebody. I want to help him," said Francona, who shifted Crawford to the leadoff spot at the start of the current homestand. "He’s never really gotten hot yet. He’s gonna get hot. I don’t care if we hit him one through nine, at some point he’s going to get real hot."

That faith is echoed throughout the Sox. All the same, right now, the player who was signed for his ability to impact the club in a multitude of ways is doing so in all the wrong ways. At the plate, clearly, he has enjoyed little offensive success.

In the field, he’s had another set of challenges while adapting to a new home park, where the idiosyncrasies of the ancient left field wall remain perplexing. On Friday, Crawford suggested after the game that his lack of familiarity with the wall played a role in his decision to stop short on a potentially catchable ball, resulting in the potential final out of the inning instead turning into a run-scoring double off the bat of Travis Snider.

“It was over my head. I could have still made a catch where I land on the wall,” said Crawford. “That ball hasn't come to me just yet. It was my first time getting that ball. It could have went either way. I probably could have jumped at it and caught it if I gave it that extra effort."

Perhaps that would have been the case. Then again, perhaps not. After all, effort has had little relationship to the outfielder’s results to date.

Again, Crawford’s first season in Boston is only 12 games old. In relative terms, it’s a drop in the bucket. And even though he said that he could not remember such a slump in his career, Crawford has experienced struggles that were comparable – indeed, arguably even deeper – than this one.

The most recent occurred in 2008, when he hit .133/.148/.150/.298 over 14 games and 61 plate appearances. But he bounced back from that rut to go on an 11-game hitting streak in which he was an offensive force (though the footnote to that hitting streak is that it ended when Crawford suffered a finger injury that knocked him out for the last seven-plus weeks of the regular season).

The Sox are eager to see Crawford gain a sense of comfort so that he can play at the level that they became accustomed to while he was with the Rays. His teammates remain behind him.

“Just got to take a deep breath and go play. That’s it. Just play through everything. You want your name in the lineup everyday when you’re struggling to find a way out of it,” said teammate Dustin Pedroia. “We’ve all gone through these stretches. But we need him, man. We’ve seen what kind of player he is.”

However, no one has seen that player emerge yet in a Red Sox uniform, a fact that has plenty of people – Crawford foremost among them – in a state of anxiety. Ordinarily, 12 games should feel like a small sample, but for Crawford and his team, right now, they have seemed like an eternity.