BOSTON_Wouldn’t it be ironic if the Rays and Marlins turn out to be the best teams the Red Sox play this month, not the worst?
At least against the Floridians, Boston were in some close games. There was a 1-0 thrown in there, a couple of 3-2s, a 2-1 and even an 8-7. The thing is, the Sox outscored those teams by a total of 16 runs in nine games. They outscored the Yankees by 13 on Tuesday night, 14-1. [...]
BOSTON_Wouldn’t it be ironic if the Rays and Marlins turn out to be the best teams the Red Sox play this month, not the worst?
At least against the Floridians, Boston were in some close games. There was a 1-0 thrown in there, a couple of 3-2s, a 2-1 and even an 8-7. The thing is, the Sox outscored those teams by a total of 16 runs in nine games. They outscored the Yankees by 13 on Tuesday night, 14-1.
Boston’s offense pounded out 11 hits, six for extra bases. The Red Sox are 9-1, continuing the best start in franchise history.
“There are certain series that get you going,” Alex Cora said, “but it’s still early, still early in the season and it’s only a good start and there’s a lot of work to be done, aspects of the game we need to keep improving.”
Geez. Maybe the next manager really does think Boston can go 161-1.
The Red Sox were paced offensively by Mookie Betts, one of the leading characters of that fairly new breed, the leadoff batter who could lead the league in home runs. Betts was 4 for 4 and scored four runs, precisely what you’d expect from your leadoff man. He also had two doubles and a grand slam, though, to account for four RBIs, more precisely what you’d expect from your cleanup hitter.
Betts is batting .432. The grand slam was Boston’s second of the season. The Sox did not have one in all of 2017.
“We’ve been talking about this since November,” Cora said of Betts. “If you’re facing us you have to execute from Pitch One. That’s the first thing that came to mind with the plan that I had - he’s gonna lead off. I saw him last year and I know how it works.”
Chris Sale was the beneficiary of the Sox’ offensive largesse, and if he can’t take all those extra tallies and put them in some sort of of 401K for runs, he was at least able to get out of work a bit early.
“He was excellent,” Cora said. “He was able to work ahead, use his fastball to set up hitters. He was gonna go out for the next inning but then the game opened up and it made no sense. Out of the three starts, that was his best one and he’s getting better.”
The Red Sox provided Sale with an early 4-0 cushion and he was never in trouble. He surrendered a mammoth home run to Aaron Judge in the fifth, the ball landing well up into the center field bleachers but — so what — it still just counted as one run.
It was the only one Sale gave up. He fanned eight, walked none and allowed the homer plus seven harmless hits to finally register his first win of the season.
Luis Severino was as bad as Sale was good. The Yankees starter went five innings and also gave up eight hits, except that they wound up resulting in five runs. He walked three and struck out six and is 2-1 for the season.
Severino, however, had nothing to do with Boston’s runs volcano in the sixth. The Red Sox had a cornucopia of plate appearances as part of the rally.
Tommy Kahnle came on to face the Red Sox in that inning and started off well enough, getting Brock Holt on a ground ball to first base. The inning ended 10 batters later with Andrew Benintendi grounding out to second.
Betwixt and between, Betts doubled and homered. Benintendi, Hanley Ramirez and Eduardo Nunez walked, Rafael Devers hit a sacrifice fly, Jackie Bradley was hit by a pitch and Christian Vazquez reached on an error.
Now, 14 runs is pretty good and especially good on a night like Tuesday. The NHL plays outdoor games in warmer weather. Still, Cora expects his team to do even more with the bat.
“We’re getting better, staying away from strikes on the edges,” he said. “Little by little they’re gonna start understanding and they’re gonna keep getting better. We’ve had two big innings — one Sunday and one today.”
If the plan holds, there will be more of those with Betts right in the middle of things, much like he was two years ago.