Final Score: Red Sox 7, Orioles 3
Well the first week of the MLB season has been an absolute rollercoaster of emotions. The Red Sox getting swept by the arguably worst team in the American League and not showing up to play in any of the games. Fast forward, 4 more games and the Red Sox haven’t lost a game since. I know it is really early to say anything about this ball club and probably will be too early to tell until mid May, but I am liking what I am seeing so far. The Red Sox seemed to fix their defensive jitters from the first series by Kiké Hernandez and Rafael Devers, with them only committing one error in the last 4 games. The offense also can’t be stopped right now with the offense showing what they truly are made of. JD Martinez is on a mission to prove to people that 2020 was an anomaly and currently hitting .433. Christian Vazquez is also tearing up the ball, with the early early front runner to being the AL all-star starting catcher. The pitching got their ace back from the IL list, Eduardo Rodriquez, and he did not seem to miss a beat…
Eduardo Rodriquez has been out the past week with “dead arm” and his Opening Day start was pushed back until April 8th. He also did not pitch the whole 2020 season because of all the COVID trouble he had, so this is the first time Red Sox fans can see him back in action. I’ll take 5 innings and 3 earned runs for someone that hasn’t pitched in a professional game in more than a year. It was great to see E-Rod strike out 7. He is going to be an important piece down the stretch and is going to try to fill in the void, with Chris Sale rehabbing from his Tommy John surgery that he got last year.
How has it been this long and I haven’t touched on the bullpen yet? The bullpen this year has been pretty good to this point. The Red Sox still doesn’t have a “conventional closer” but I think that Matt Barnes will do the trick. He has been clean to this point, with 3 appearances, and have struck out 9 batters in 4 innings. My complaints of Matt Barnes have been that he is wild with his fastball and I feel like I can’t count on him when the game is on the line. He has proved me wrong so far this season and I feel like he can carry this momentum going. The other secret weapon they have is Garrett Whitlock. Thank you Yankees for letting us take him in the Rule 5 draft. His stuff looks amazing so far, with a change up that no one can hit to this point. In his two appearances, he’s went 5 and a third innings, with no earned runs, and 8 strikeouts. This bullpen will be the dark horse for this team and will be the number one piece in order for the Red Sox to make it to October…
And who can forget about the offense. The offense in the first series was no where to be found, but after Christian Vazquez’s tweet, the offense hasn’t missed a beat. In Thursday’s game the offense scored 7 runs on 12 hits. Rafael Devers (in the 1st) and Kiké Hernandez (in the 8th) hit their first homeruns of the season! JD kept going with his revenge tour getting another extra base hit, an extra base hit in all of his 7 games played this season. Then there’s Christian Vazquez… It seems like he is just seeing red and no one can get him out, no matter how hard they try. I LOVE his homerun celebration with him in his shopping cart and I hope that he does this for the rest of the season. At this rate, “Moon Man” will be in the shopping cart every other game. I’ve missed the Red Sox and baseball in general. It just seems right watching the Red Sox, every night, either cheering for them or yelling at them because of something they did. I’m not setting my expectations really high. I bet them to go over their expected win total of 80.5 but I just want them to be competitive in September and October. With the offense hitting like this, I see no problem the Red Sox won’t be competitive in the fall!
