NEW YORK -- By the time the Red Sox arrived at Yankee Stadium on Saturday morning, it had been 100 games and 333 days since the fatal fall of last September. The general manager was different, the field manager was different, a significant portion of the roster was different — all in hopes that a corrupted culture would be different, too.

By the time the Sox took the field for Game 101, though, it was obvious yet again that little had actually changed in the latter regard.

It's assumed beer and chicken are indeed in the past. But in the span of Saturday's pregame, Bobby Valentine admitted he'd intentionally ignored the orders of his medical staff. Carl Crawford said he was embarrassed by being told he needed to sit out every fifth day. Then the outfielder insisted that surgery is inevitable on his elbow, even though the team doesn't believe that procedure is necessary.

To boot, it all unfolded after ex-manager Terry Francona was seen carousing with several of his former players in the visitors' clubhouse — a room the day's disagreements, distrust and dysfunction suggest is not dissimilar from the place it was when he walked out of it after last season.

The latest evidence surfaced when Valentine was asked why, with the Yankees starting southpaw C.C. Sabathia, he was sitting Crawford in favor of Daniel Nava, the slumping substitute who was hitting .123 with a .464 on-base plus slugging in July, and .148 with a .508 OPS this year against lefties.

The manager explained that trainers told him Crawford couldn't play more than four straight days as he recovers from a succession of arm injuries that compromised a ligament in his throwing elbow — however that didn't jive with the fact Crawford had played six straight games to start his comeback. So that's when he acknowledged his disregard for his orders.

“I did a manager no-no thing and went against what I was told to do,” Valentine told reporters. “They told me before that game that he wasn't playing, and I kind of did the old veto power.”

Crawford suggested he didn't understand or agree with the protective approach, which is apparently designed to protect him while also building strength, but which he says he didn't hear of until Saturday. He insisted he was healthy enough to play, and that not being in the lineup gives him an “embarrassing” feeling that he's “hiding from somebody” — but at the same time, he did suggest there is cause for caution with the condition of his elbow.

General manager Ben Cherington has said the club does not believe its left fielder needs Tommy John surgery, though Crawford continued to say that reconstruction is coming eventually. And if Valentine's disregard for the training staff was arguably more defiant, Crawford's was more insistent — intimating that he should have the procedure as soon as possible to initiate the healing.

“That would be the smart thing to do,” the left fielder told reporters. “You definitely want to take care of it as soon as possible. Like I said, we'll have to wait and see. ... If I can help, I still want to do that. If not, we'll probably have to look into it.”

So, to sum it up: The team overhauled its medical staff after last season, in part because the players didn't fully trust in those doctors. Now the $142 million outfielder disagrees with the new docs' evaluation of his elbow. The manager directly disobeyed the instructions of that reconfigured training staff, apparently in some part to flex the might of his position. And the backdrop to all of this is the possibility that everyone involved has legitimate concern that the club could realistically lose one of its supposed stars for the better part of two seasons.

That doesn't seem a recipe for winning baseball.

Not that a 49-51 record required any further proof.

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As much as the inner-workings appear off kilter, it isn't the biggest cause of Boston's last-place standing. There, the blame begins with Jon Lester and Josh Beckett.

They are supposed to be the top two pitchers on Boston's starting staff — yet the club entered Lester's Saturday start at 13-24 in games the pair appeared. That means when anyone else has taken the ball to begin a game, the Sox are 36-27. That's a .571 winning percentage.

By comparison, after winning behind Phil Hughes on Friday night, the Yankees were only half a game better, at 36-26, and playing .581 ball. Without Jake Arrieta and Tommy Hunter, the Orioles have won at a .554 clip (36-29). The Rays without David Price and James Shields, as well as the Blue Jays without Ricky Romero and Brandon Morrow, are both well below .500.

Yet the Sox trail all of those teams in the standings, and entered Saturday an almost-hopeless 11.5 games behind the first-place Yankees — despite that when things had been left to the rest of the rotations, the bullpens and the lineups, Boston and New York have basically been the same caliber of club.

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Until this year, it hadn't been since 1997 that the Red Sox lost for the 50th time before their 106th game of the season. That was also the previous time that the club had at least 50 losses before the end of July. Last year Boston lost for the 51st time on Aug. 26 (in Game 131) and won its 49th game on July 3 (in Game 83).

Conversely, the Yankees' Friday win marked the fourth straight season in which they reached 60 wins before playing their 100th contest.

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STAT OF THE WEEK: Entering Saturday, the Yankees had scored 10 runs in a game just five times this season (three of which came against the Red Sox). The Sox had done it 13 times — yet, an indictment on Boston's inconsistent attack, they were overall averaging just 4.88 runs per game, compared to New York's 4.85.

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Dave D'Onofrio covers the Red Sox for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. His e-mail address is ddonof13@gmail.com.