Red Sox: Analyzing Boston’s series win over the Detroit Tigers

Game One: Red Sox 1 – Tigers 3

• Look, some days are just going to be like that. Matt Manning is a promising young arm, and he commanded the strike zone very well. The Red Sox were without two of their best hitters and forced to play an afternoon game after a long Sunday night game the day prior. I’m not worried about the offense.
• Michael Wacha got off to a rough start, walking two batters in the first inning and allowing a sacrifice fly to Miguel Cabrera. Yet he settled in after that, retiring ten of the last 12 batters he faced. He barely threw his cutter, which was hammered to the tune of a .375 average and a .586 slugging percentage last season, and instead relied mostly on his fastball and changeup. We’ll see how Wacha does when he is allowed to work deeper into games, but this was a successful debut.
• One pitcher who has impressed in his early outings is Matt Strahm. He’s allowed just one baserunner in his first three appearances and struck out both batters he faced on Monday. Strahm’s fastball and sinker have both gained a mile and a half of velocity since last year, and his slider has induced whiffs at a 50 percent rate. After years of struggling with injuries, Strahm looks healthy so far in 2022.
• Matt Barnes finally made his season debut on Tuesday, and while he threw a scoreless inning of relief, the underlying signs are worrying. His fastball was nearly two miles slower than last year while his curveball’s spin rate fell by around 300 RPMs. This is what we saw all of last year’s second half and spring training, and it’s hard to see him as a late-inning reliever until he recovers his stuff.
• Pitching for the third time in four days, Ryan Brasier looked exhausted. His average fastball was three miles slower than his debut on Friday, and the one that Baez launched over the left-field wall clocked in at just 93 miles per hour. Brasier can’t survive with that kind of mediocre velocity, and it was a good move by Cora to keep him out of the last two games.
• Travis Shaw and Jonathan Arauz went a combined 0-for-6 on the day and remain hitless in the season. It’s hard to see a path for them to turn it around: Shaw’s bat speed looks to have slowed considerably, and Arauz’s career 85.6 MPH average exit velocity would have ranked sixth-worst among all hitters last season. When those hitters are all in the lineup on the same hitter, it’s basically two automatic outs every time through the order
• On a positive note, Rafael Devers made another nice play in the field, ranging to his right and firing off a strong throw to first to get Jonathan Schoop. Many in the Red Sox organization spoke to the work Devers put in on his defense this winter, and it looks to be paying off early.

Game Two: Red Sox 5 – Tigers 3

• This was the kind of mentally tough win that great teams grind out. Playing in front of 5,000 fans on a sleepy Tuesday afternoon amid a team-wide offensive slump, it would have been easy for the Red Sox to just go through the motions and accept it wasn’t their day. Instead, they battled back to tie the game with a three-run sixth and took the lead with two runs in the eighth. Lesser teams lose this game, and this was the first sign that great things may be ahead for the 2022 Red Sox.
• One thing hitting coaches tell you when you’re struggling is to let the ball travel and work the entire field. That’s exactly what Kiké Hernández did on Tuesday. After starting the season in an 0-18 funk, Hernandez smacked two doubles down the right-field line and mixed in a walk for good measure. That doesn’t mean that Hernandez is completely out of his slump, but it’s nice to see him get on the board.
• There’s something to be said for a guy who throws strikes and knows how to manipulate the zone. There’s also something to be said for throwing over 90 mph, and Rich Hill didn’t do that once on Tuesday. He breezed through the first two innings with ease but got jumped for three runs in the third. To be fair, the defense was not great behind him, but when you can’t strike anyone out, you leave yourself susceptible to BABIP luck.
• Speaking of poor defense, Christian Arroyo was a mess Tuesday in right field. He took two disastrous routes to catchable fly balls that helped lead to the 3-run third. The Red Sox forced him to learn right field on the fly, and the early returns are not good. He’s going to need to hit a lot more than he currently is to justify at-bats as an outfielder.
• Garrett Whitlock is an absolute machine. There is just nothing that can phase the guy. He’s as unassuming as you could possibly get on the mound, but he made the Tigers lineup look like amateurs in his four scoreless innings in relief. The great thing about Whitlock is that he throws so many strikes that his pitch count stays remarkably low even in extended work, which allows him to pitch more often than most stretched-out relievers.
• Jonathan Arauz punched out two more times and is still without a hit on the season. Trevor Story can’t come back soon enough.

Game Three: Red Sox 9 – Tigers 7

• After five games of mediocre offense, the Red Sox lineup broke out on Wednesday. They pounded Tigers pitching for nine runs on 12 hits and showed improved patience at the plate by working six walks. Every starter except Christian Vazquez had at least one hit, and Kike Hernandez, Trevor Story, Bobby Dalbec, and Jackie Bradley Jr. collected multi-hit games.
• With two on and nobody out in the top of the fourth, Christian Arroyo laid down a beautiful sacrifice bunt to advance both runners. This marked the second time in as many days that Alex Cora ordered such a play. You have to wonder whether this is just a sign of a struggling team trying to generate some offense or if it indicates a change in philosophy that ranked 24th in sacrifice hits in 2021. I would guess the former.
• It was tough to see Eduardo Rodriguez get rocked like that. He was a staple of the Red Sox pitching staff for over half a decade and came up huge in last year’s postseason. Yet the inconsistency that plagued him in Boston came back to bite him on Wednesday. His location was spotty at best, and he had no answer when the Red Sox started squaring up his low-90s heater. On this day at least, the Red Sox’s decision not to match the Tigers’ offer proved to be a smart one.
• It was nice to see Jackie Bradley Jr. break out of his slump with a pair of RBI doubles. This doesn’t mean he’s going to be an offensive force by any stretch of the imagination, but when he uses the whole field as he did on Wednesday, he can be a somewhat competent hitter
• You have to appreciate what Trevor Story did in this one. After food poisoning caused him to miss three games, Story unexpectedly came back for the series finale, though he was clearly not at 100%. He got blown away in each of his first two at-bats but bounced back with hits in two of his final three plate appearances. Story’s talent was already well-documented, but his toughness might be equally as impressive.
• Nathan Eovaldi did not have his best stuff on this day. His fastball velocity clocked in only around 95 miles per hour, and he struggled to finish batters off as a result. He hung a number of breaking balls, including the one that was launched out of the park by Jonathan Schoop. But Eovaldi did what aces do: Keep the team in the game even when you’re not at your best. He pounded the strike zone even as Tigers batters fouled off pitch after pitch and gutted through five innings to earn his well-deserved first win of the year.
• If there was any doubt about who would be the odd lefty out when Josh Taylor returned, Wednesday’s game sealed the deal. Austin Davis entered with a 9-1 eighth-inning lead and couldn’t even make it out of the inning, allowing three runs on three hits and a walk. With Matt Strahm and Jake Diekman both off to hot starts this season, it’s only a matter of time before Davis gets sent to the minors.
• I don’t want to make too many conclusions about the arms on the hills today, however. The weather was terrible, and the grip on the ball was just as bad. Kutter Crawford and Diekman both pitched well in New York, so they get a pass for having shaky outings in Detroit.

Red Sox v. Tigers Final Thoughts

Given how anemic the offense looked for the first game and a half of this series, you have to be encouraged with the Red Sox taking two out of three. It was terrific to see the bats finally break out, especially the previously hitless.

There are still some pockets of the Red Sox lineup that are not hitting, namely Jonathan Arauz and Travis Shaw, but the meat of the order is swinging the bat well. With Trevor Story coming back in the series finale, the Red Sox will have their lineup at full strength going forward.

The pitching staff had their ups and downs in this series. On the positive side, Michael Wacha had a solid Red Sox debut, and Garrett Whitlock continues to be automatic. On the other hand, Ryan Brasier’s velocity dip and Rich Hill’s inability to face an order a second time give reasons to be concerned.

A 3-3 road trip isn’t going to blow anybody anyway, but it could have been a lot worse. There were a lot of reasons to be encouraged from this road trip, and now the Red Sox can get settled in back at home.

Next up will be a four-game set in Fenway against the Twins. The Twins have a high-octane offense led by Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa, but they will be throwing Joe Ryan, Sonny Gray, Bailey Ober, and Dylan Bundy in this series, and their bullpen are mediocre at best. This should be a series in which the Red Sox could take 3 out of 4.

Series MVP: J.D Martinez (.333/.539/.778, 1 HR)