Baseball can seduce us. We fall in love with a team one day, walk away during a losing streak, and then return for an embrace when things get better.
We do it over and over, right?
Take the Boston Red Sox. The team that everybody expects to slide to last place in the AL East — for the third consecutive year and the fourth in the last five — has generated so little love that we can’t wait for the NFL Draft and what the Patriots will do with the No. 3 pick.
But then the Sox split a four-game season-opening series with the Seattle Mariners, and they have our attention.
A split with a club that boasts possibly the best starting pitching in the American League? Unbelievable!
Did you think the Red Sox would get strong starts from pitchers Brayan Bello, Nick Pivetta, Kutter Crawford and Garrett Whitlock? I didn’t.
Bello pitched five decent innings in the 6-4 victory Thursday night. Pivetta was superb the next night. He scattered three hits and struck out 10 in six innings. Unfortunately for him, one of those hits was J.P. Crawford’s solo home run, which gave the Mariners a 1-0 win.
Kutter Crawford did his job Saturday night by striking out seven Mariners in six innings and retiring 14 in a row after the first inning. But, shades of the last two seasons, the Boston bullpen couldn’t protect a two-run lead in the 10th, resulting in a 4-3 loss. Julio Rodriguez singled home the game winner off Justin Slaten, who was making his Major League debut.
In the series finale Easter Sunday, Whitlock went five innings, allowed three hits and struck out eight. He did not walk a batter. Slaten returned to the mound and earned his first big-league save in Boston’s 5-1 victory.
Starting pitching is a huge question mark this season. The quartet that worked in Seattle provided Red Sox Nation a glimmer of hope. In 22 innings they allowed five runs — four earned — struck out 27, and walked only five.
Great, certainly, but there’s a lot of ground to cover between a weekend series in March and the World Series in October.
First, the Red Sox have to hit. They got 21 hits in their two victories, 11 in their two losses. Newbie Tyler O’Neill hit a pair of home runs. Rafael Devers also homered in the opener. Enmanuel Valdez delivered a three-run shot Sunday, his first hit in nine plate appearances.
Second, they have to limit their fielding errors. Two hurt them in the 10-inning loss Saturday night.
Third, the starters have to last five innings as they did over the weekend. It’s the new standard of excellence.
Fourth, the regulars have to stay healthy. Devers, the only bona fide star on the Red Sox roster, missed the second and third games because of pain in his left shoulder. Closer Kenley Jansen reported back pain after picking up his first save in the series opener and was unavailable for two days. Injury-related DNPs so early in the season are a concern.
Second baseman Vaughn Grissom, obtained in the trade that sent oft-injured pitcher Chris Sale to Atlanta, is still nursing a groin strain that kept him off the field during spring training. He should be cleared to play this month.
Free agent pitcher Lucas Giolito, slated to be the No. 1 starter, is probably done for the season as the result of an elbow injury. Shortstop Trevor Story and right fielder O’Neill have suffered serious injuries in recent years.
Fifth, versatility is the name of the contemporary game, but it would be great if the Red Sox could develop a consistent day-to-day lineup. Devers at third, Story at short, Triston Casas at first, outfielders O’Neill, Ceddanne Rafaela and Jarren Duran, and catcher Connor Wong. Valdez is the second baseman until Vaughn Grissom recovers from a groin strain later this month.
Keep in mind this team is early-20s young. We’ll have to wait to see if it is better or worse than the teams that finished 78-84 the last two seasons. Their 2023 record tied with Detroit for ninth place overall in the 15-team American League.
If you spent the winter and spring reading and listening to the doomsday prophets predicting another fifth-place finish, you are probably convinced this team is bad and has no chance of moving up.
But if you want the definition of bad, check out the 1965 Red Sox. That sorry crew finished 62-100, ninth in the 10-team American League and 40 games behind pennant-winning Minnesota. Those Red Sox were so bad that attendance totaled 652,201, the lowest since 1945, and averaged 8,052 per game. The stars were 20-year-old Tony Conigliaro — the youngest AL home run leader in history with 32 — and 25-year-old Carl Yastrzemski, whose .312 batting average was second to Minnesota’s Tony Oliva, who batted .321.
Two years later, Tony C., Yaz, shortstop Rico Petrocelli and pitcher Jim Lonborg – also veterans of ’65 – became the nucleus of the Impossible Dream Team, the 100-1 shot that won the 1967 American League pennant on the last day of the season and sparked the Red Sox Renaissance in New England.
Will history repeat itself with the 2024 Red Sox? We’ll see. For now, the 10-game West Coast road trip — a soft opening for us New Englanders who fall asleep after those late starts — continues in Oakland. Tanner Houck will be on the mound Monday night for the first of three. The trip will end next weekend with three games against the Angels.
Opening Day at Fenway Park is April 9 against the Orioles.
