This Boston Red Sox team will take some time to evaluate and just a handful of games will not suffice. By the end of May, we should know just what is in store for 2019.
After two games I fully embrace that the end is near and another 86 years of abysmal disappointment awaits the Red Sox. I am just considering the Drano approach to avoid suffering through a season of bitter disappointment and having to keep up some level of self-control with the inevitable barbs from Yankee fans. So much for my early season sarcasm.
In the great scope of baseball, a few games or even a month is relatively meaningless in the big picture approach. How this team is constructed and how it performs will need at least one-third of a season to evaluate. There is then the emotional rush to judgment that surfaces on social media. Panic is the other side of the invested emotional coin to patience.
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Baseball is a game that enforces patience based on such an extended schedule. Player’s routinely experience slumps and slumps also apply to pitching. A Chris Sale or Nathan Eovaldi has a bad game or an awful game it is to be expected. Baseball is not the short game, but the long game.
The Red Sox early season has opened with a delightful eleven game excursion through the western reaches of the United States. Normally a trip west is fraught with danger and has little to rejoice in, but this is a different Red Sox century. The teams that have been constructed are capable of not missing a beat when leaving the comfy confines of Fenway Park. Just ask the Yankees, Astros, and Dodgers who saw Boston clinch on their turf.
Just what should be expected in the foreseeable future for the Red Sox? This twists back to the one-third of the season for an evaluation tool. The most natural is quite naturally the team record. Are they in the proverbial “hunt” for a division or playoff position? Within that is the various pieces that will decide the precious won and loss record.
The foundation of baseball circulates around that little bump in the middle of the diamond and pitching is the recipe that becomes the ingredient for success. The Red Sox rotation is certainly among the best on paper and paper usually translates quality performance. Unless the starting five suddenly regress in total there should be no concern. Injury can always rear its way of turning an arm to gristle, but let’s put that in a safe place in our minds.
The most relevant pitching concern is the bullpen. Apparently, manager Alex Cora has somewhat determined that the most prestigious position that of closer is now the responsibility of Matt Barnes. The remaining will jockey for position within the pecking order, but if at the one-third mark a call to the bullpen causes an apoplectic fit among Red Sox Nation we are indeed in troubled times. By the end of May, we shall know.
Catcher is the question of the day that is paramount for both offense and defense. Sandy Leon has taken his ineffectual bat and exception glove to Pawtucket. A mere 55 minutes via Uber to Fenway. Will Blake Swihart provide enough offense to compensate for the lessening defense? Will Christian Vazquez discover the bat he used in 2017?
For Abbott and Costello fans we will know who’s on second somewhere in the next few weeks. Dustin Pedroia is on schedule for a return in the near future providing the baseball evaluation jury brings in a positive verdict. A season of sloppy defense from Brock Holt and Eduardo Nunez will make pitchers shutter with each ground ball hit in their general area.
With defense just what will happen with Rafael Devers? Devers treats each ball like a live hand grenade and the last thing the infield needs is a Butch Hobson defense clone at third. But with Devers, it is also will the kid hit? In 2018 Devers struggled with bat and glove, but that bat provides a teasing glimpse into his potential as a key hitter in the lineup. Cora is running with Devers in the three hole and that is telling in managerial confidence.
The Red Sox outfield has two players – Jackie Bradley Jr.and Andrew Benintendi – who are both on the cusp of having a not good, but a great offensive contribution. In the second half, last season Bradley hit .269 and even more should be expected. I look at Benintendi and think an eventual batting title is in his career. Will he show enough to prove that faith correct?
When the Merry Month of May – apologies to author James Jones – is finished we will have a template for just what the rest of the baseball year will produce. Quite naturally always in the picture – as unavoidable as Boston traffic – is the New York Yankees. In the meantime, patience is required along with a nice nine-game winning streak.