BALTIMORE – It started over the months and years during which the rumors floated in the ether. It intensified immensely when the Padres and Red Sox agreed to a deal, pending a successful negotiation between the player and his new team. And then, finally, by the time that Adrian Gonzalez donned a Red Sox uniform, projections solidified into expectations and certainties.

Gonzalez would use his tailor-made-for-Fenway Park swing to send ball after ball into the seats. He would crush balls over the bullpen and loft them into the Monster Seats. After he had averaged more than 30 homers per year in the hitting graveyard of Petco, no suggestion for Gonzalez’ home run totals seemed too outlandish.

Thirty homers? A given; a baseline. Forty? Well, if he could hit 40 in 2009 as a member of the Padres – in that lineup and in that park – then it seemed safe to assume that it would be easy for the slugger in the middle of his prime to clear that bar. Fifty? More challenging, but certainly not impossible or even outlandish to suggest.

Gonzalez hadn’t taken a single swing in a Sox uniform before he was anointed one of the greatest sluggers in Red Sox history. It was hard to fault such wide-eyed expectations.

After all, the Sox were going to sign him to one of the richest deals in big league history, something that suggested that he should be a transcendent player – certainly among the best in the game now, and perhaps capable of comparison beyond his own epoch.

Such thoughts weren’t just the flights of fancy of eager fans. Internally, the Sox front office felt that Gonzalez could partner with Kevin Youkilis to give them the sort of left/right middle of the order combination that they possessed when David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were at the height of their powers.

The team had craved that dynamic in recent years, prompting the failed courtship of switch-hitter Mark Teixeira. In Gonzalez, the Sox hoped, they would have their man.

All of that may well come to fruition. It is just that if Gonzalez is to fulfill any of those ambitious projections, it will require a process rather than instant gratification.

Gonzalez has hit exactly one homer as a member of the Red Sox, a shot that came in the first week of the season. After going 1-for-4 with a double in Tuesday’s 4-1 loss to the Orioles (recap), he has gone 17 games without a homer, the sixth longest streak of his career. His totals are modest: a .281 average, .354 OBP, .416 slugging mark and .770 OPS.

A player who appeared perfect on paper has instead proven human now that the games have begun. As teammates Carl Crawford and J.D. Drew or even former Sox players such as Edgar Renteria, Coco Crisp and Julio Lugo can attest, Gonzalez is not unique in that regard.

Nonetheless, it was interesting to hear the first baseman acknowledge that he has yet to feel as if his hitting mechanics have been locked in with his new club. In particular, Gonzalez was distressed that in a key at-bat of the game – a bases-loaded, two-out trip to the plate against O’s rookie Zach Britton, when the Sox were trailing, 2-1 – he got the pitch that he expected (a fastball away) yet rolled it over to second.

“I should have put it in play better than that,” said Gonzalez. “It’s one of those things where if I’m feeling really comfortable at the plate, normally I’d hit it to left field. I can’t say it would have been a hit or anything. But I don’t pull off or top it.”

Gonzalez noted that he feels decent at the plate, and that he is getting enough hits to sustain a .280 batting average. He said that his surgically repaired right shoulder has not been an issue. But he is struggling with his pitch recognition and mechanics, resulting in his low power numbers and modest total of nine walks to date.

“I’m pulling off of everything,” said Gonzalez. “It’s one of those things for me where, right now, I’m searching.”

In all likelihood, Gonzalez’ search will soon reach a successful conclusion. The precision with which Gonzalez described his struggles suggests he has identified a root problem with a straightforward solution.

“Just repetition,” said Gonzalez. “It’s something that I’ve got to work through it.”

Even operating on the assumption that Gonzalez will soon escape his struggles, however, with the benefit of some perspective, it is worth wondering whether the initial projections of his power numbers – and the idea of Fenway being perfectly suited to his swing – were overblown.

In that context, it is interesting to note how few left-handed hitters in Red Sox history have hit 30 homers. Just five players have accomplished the feat: Ted Williams (8 times), David Ortiz (6), Mo Vaughn (4), Carl Yastrzemski (3) and Fred Lynn (1). By contrast, there have been 19 different right-handed hitters (and two switch-hitters) who have joined the 30-homer club as members of the Red Sox.

Fenway is almost always a tremendous park for left-handed hitters, who benefit from being able to stay back on pitches and then flick them off the Monster. But home runs can prove more challenging.

Some of the left-handed hitters have posted great power numbers despite Fenway rather than because of it. Williams hit 248 homers at Fenway and 273 on the road (in 38 fewer road games and 120 fewer plate appearances). Ortiz has hit a majority (53 percent) of his homers with the Sox on the road.

“It can play fair; it can play unfair. It’s a long ways to right field out there,” said Sox outfielder J.D. Drew, who has hit 34 homers with the Sox at Fenway, and 43 on the road. “It’s 380 over my left shoulder (when standing in right field). Normally, most ballparks are 360 right there. It takes a jolt to get it out there. People look at the right field corner and go, ‘Oh, it’s only 302 feet or whatever,’ but it goes straight back to 380, so it’s pretty tough.

“I’ve hit a lot of balls good out there. Especially in 2007, I remember hitting a lot of balls really good for outs. It’s a challenging home run park, especially with the wall in left field. A lot of my home runs to left field, coming into playing in Boston, were hard hit line drives. Those are doubles in Fenway. You’ve really got to inside-out and lift the ball. I don’t have that natural lift to carry it to left field as much as I do that nice little line drive stroke.”

Now, Gonzalez does generate loft with his opposite field swing, and so it is possible that he could end up being capable of taking advantage of the Wall. By his own account, his plate approach would be a good fit for Fenway’s signature landmark.

“For the most part, if I have one pitch to choose and am looking to drive it, I’ll look for something middle-away, a little up in the zone,” Gonzalez noted this spring. “I started driving the ball to the opposite field since I picked up a bat. It’s God-given, for sure.”

Certainly, players with that sort of swing have taken advantage of Gonzalez’ new home park before. Yastrzemski found Fenway to be a favorable environment, with 237 of his 452 homers (52.4 percent) coming in Boston. Vaughn’s opposite-field stroke translated to 118 homers at home, compared to 112 on the road as a member of the Sox.

And regardless of whether Gonzalez finds Fenway to be a favorable or challenging park, his career track record suggests that he should still generate impressive longball totals. From 2007-10, after all, he averaged 22.5 homers per year on the road, most in the majors.  If he returned to that level, then even if Fenway proved a slight hindrance (rather than the expected boon) to his power numbers, the basis of the 40-plus home run projections becomes clear.

But for now, such projections will have to wait. For now, Gonzalez would be content simply to hit his second home run, rather than daydreaming about season-long totals that once seemed like a given but that now, amidst a slower-than-expected start, seem like distant projections.