Scary day for JBJ
After grabs, falls in 9th
DETROIT — Jackie Bradley Jr. refused to knock on wood. Said he didn’t need to. He’d just crashed into a wall, fallen down while running the bases, and — perhaps most troubling — coughed into his shirt while standing in the middle of a Red Sox clubhouse overrun by the flu.
“I’m built like Secretariat,” Bradley insisted. “It’s all good.”
It was a surprising show of confidence given all that had just happened. In a punchless 4-1 loss to the Tigers yesterday, Bradley had been one of the Red Sox’ only high points. He’d driven in their only run and made two terrific running catches in center field.
But in the ninth inning, while running out a meaningless fly ball, Bradley stumbled rounding first base. He seemed to injure his right knee and crashed to the dirt, where trainers rushed to his side. Bradley walked off gingerly and was examined in the clubhouse.
It looked bad, perhaps the worst blow yet to a Red Sox roster already decimated by injury, illness and bereavement, but initial tests came back negative, and Bradley declared himself good to go. He said he expects to be in the lineup today.
“That’s what I’m thinking,” he said, again with a dismissive certainty.
If that’s the case, perhaps yesterday was simply the low point of this bizarre opening week for the Red Sox.
They were again without Mookie Betts, Hanley Ramirez and Xander Bogaerts, and reliever Joe Kelly was added to the list of sick players. One run was their weakest offensive showing yet. The Red Sox offense has hit in 38 innings this season, and scored in only four of them.
They’ve still managed to keep an even record at 2-2.
“It’s not like we can go home and quit,” Dustin Pedroia said. “We’ve got games to play, man. We’ve got a job to do, and we’re going to try to do it the best we can.”
Betts was at least available to pinch hit for the first time since Opening Day, and he could be back in the lineup today. Bogaerts is scheduled to return from the bereavement list tomorrow. Both would be welcome additions.
That said, Andrew Benintendi threw up in the middle of yesterday’s game, and the team can only hope it was a one-time issue and not the sign of another illness in the middle of the order.
“There’s an old saying,” manager John Farrell said. “You do what you can with what you have where you are, and that’s where we’re at right now. We still have confidence in the guys we run on the field and put together a quality ballgame, and we’re back at it (today).”
A sure sign of where the Red Sox are came in the fifth inning, with the score 1-1, when Farrell brought the infield in only to have the Tigers put together a three-run outburst to provide the difference. It was basically an allor-nothing risk, an acknowledgment that the Red Sox couldn’t concede even one run in the middle of a close game.
“We’re going to look to take runs away early in ballgames, even in the middle innings,” Farrell said. “Knowing that runs are kind of a premium for us to come by right now, given the state of our lineup, that’s not to take anything away from our guys, but you take out the middle of an order, it’s going to create a little void.”
Bradley has done his part to aid in the run prevention. He twice robbed Nick Castellanos of extra bases, including an eighth-inning catch just before slamming into the wall.
“Oh man, it’s a joke,” Pedroia said. “He’s making plays that I don’t know if anybody else can make. It’s pretty special, the routes he’s taking and the way he’s getting the ball.”
Bradley is also hitting .286, but it’s his defense — long recognized as a strength — that’s stood out this early in the season.
“Definitely been working on first step,” he said. “I just feel like I’m getting to the ball more powerfully. Other than that, I don’t know if I’m better. I’ve just happened to make some good plays so far.”
Bradley said his shoulder was fine after the catch at the wall, and his knee felt fine after the fall rounding first. But that cough in the clubhouse?
“It’s just cough,” he said. “I don’t get sick. I haven’t been sick since I had the chicken pox when I was 6.”
On a team overloaded with sickness, those were the most optimistic words of the day.