Pitching Ninja helps recap a wild first weekend
"I like our lineup."
This was the familiar refrain heard from Alex Cora as the spring training days dwindled, usually coming in response to a question about the feeling he had about the team that was about to be rolled out for the 2023 season.
It turns out, the Red Sox manager might have been on to something. The same could be said for Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom.
Judging by what unfolded through the first three games, this part of the equation might work out, after all.
"Everybody wanted to count us out, say we're gonna be last in our division. But you know, we don't feel that way. We like our team," said Alex Verdugo after the Red Sox' 9-5 win over the Orioles. "We feel like the more we play, the more we start having like wins like yesterday, the walk off with (Adam) Duvall, these are things that fire up the clubhouse, that get the boys going, get them together, get the chemistry going right. Take off kind of a little bit of pressure, if you will. For us, there’s not going to be one, set guy that's going to hold this whole team up and keep going. It's going to be every single one of us."
At this point, Cora, Verdugo, Bloom and Co. have the facts on their side.
- They have scored at least nine runs in each of their first three games in a season for the first time in franchise history.
- They are the third team all-time to score nine or more runs in each of their first three games in a season, joining the 1978 Brewers and 1976 Reds.
- They have recorded 11 or more hits in each of their first three games in a season for the third time in club history (also 1954 and 1902). Since the start of 2017, the only other team to record 11 or more hits in each of their first three games in a season was the Dodgers in 2019 and 2021.
- Starting with the seventh inning of yesterday's game, the Red Sox have scored in eight of their 11 offensive innings, scoring 13 runs over the span.
After these first wave of games over the weekend, the Red Sox ended up with the second-most runs in Major League Baseball (27) with the fourth-best OPS (.959) and the fourth-most extra-base hits (14).
With runners on base, the Red Sox boasted the third-best OPS in baseball (1.054), also managing a .967 clip (4th-best) with runners in scoring position. And there was only one team better - the Rangers - with two outs and runners in scoring position, with the Red Sox hitting .417 with a 1.333 OPS in such situations.
They also are doing exactly what what promised, making contact. The Red Sox came away from these three games with the fourth-lowest percentage of swings and misses in the majors (22.1 percent).
As for the construction of this lineup, look at some of the perceived concerns:
- The leadoff spot boasted a .976 OPS.
- Rafael Devers wasn't walked once, going 7-for-15.
- The guy hitting behind Devers, Justin Turner, reached base in half of his 14 plate appearances.
Maybe it's too early. Perhaps this was simply a product of bad Baltimore pitching.
But what the Red Sox did in the short-term was make their fans avert their eyes from Xander Bogaerts starting the season with two home runs and a 1.471 OPS, Christian Vaquez going 4-for-7 to start his year, and J.D. Martinez hitting a homer. And considering the offseason microscope this roster construction was under, that is no small feat.
"It’s not sustainable, but we’re going to be OK," said Cora of his team's nine-runs-a-game pace. "That’s something that we felt in spring training was going to happen, and the quality at-bats are going to stay there. We’re going to go through stretches that we don’t score, but I don’t see too many stretches that we’re going to be swinging and missing, and that’s going to be important for us."