Ramirez puts on show
Keys Sox win over Marlins
MIAMI — Just call him Miami Hanley.
“Mister Marlin,” Hanley Ramirez said.
Ramirez turned back the clock last night and looked like a five-tool player in a starring performance as the Red Sox trampled the starless Miami Marlins, 7-3, in front of just 11,113 fans at Marlins Park.
Ramirez went 2-for-5 with a two-run home run that gave the Sox some breathing room in the fifth inning, then singled and stole second base to score another in the ninth and save the Sox from having to use closer Craig Kimbrel.
In the bottom of the ninth, with Kimbrel warming and Marcus Walden struggling on the mound, Ramirez nearly did a split to pick a ball thrown by Rafael Devers at third base to keep the runners on second and third from advancing. Then he made a diving stop at first base for the second out of the inning.
When the third out was recorded, Ramirez took off his shirt. Before the game, he met with a sick child and told him if he homered, the child would get his jersey. After the game, Ramirez walked into the stands and presented him with his autographed uniform.
“That’s God; hit that homer,” Ramirez said. “It can happen to anybody but this little kid, oh my God. It’s so upsetting. But you have to keep it strong mentally.”
In the locker room a teammate shouted, “30-30” at Ramirez, who is now 28 stolen bases and 29 homers away from his spring training prediction that he was going 30-30. Ramirez has just one 30-30 season when he was 24 years old with the Marlins. He’s now 34, but he looked about 10 years younger last night.
“He’s a good player and he needs 28 more,” Sox manager Alex Cora said. “We’ll see if he gets there. That’s ironic that he’s closer to get 30 bags than 30 home runs. But I mean, awareness. He did it the other day in Tampa and then today. It’s a four-run game (in the eighth). He wants us to stay away from Craig. It’s a big stolen base right there. You still have to play the game. He was aware. He stole it. Rafael Devers put a good swing and it’s a five-run game.”
The Sox put up five on starter Trevor Richards, a former Indy ball pitcher who made his major league debut, then they pounded on the Marlins bullpen.
Ramirez, who hadn’t homered at Marlins Park since 2012 when he was still with the Fish, jumped on a hanging breaking ball and launched it over the left-field wall in the fifth. He nearly hit another one in the seventh, but the skyhigh pop-up landed just before the warning track.
When Richards departed, Mookie Betts got his first long ball of the year when he homered off Chris O’Grady, a 28-yearold sophomore who had a 4.36 ERA last year. O’Grady dropped a slow curve through the zone and Betts went down and got it.
The Marlins’ lineup is now without Giancarlo Stanton, Marcell Ozuna and Christian Yelich, all traded this offseason, and the Sox’ Brian Johnson had no trouble maneuvering his way through six innings of work in his season debut.
“He was excellent,” Cora said. “We needed this one. We needed him to go deep in the game.”
Johnson was locating his high-80s fastball and dropping in swift hooks from the first inning on. In the first, he struck out Derek Dietrich swinging on an 88-mph heater up in the zone and then flipped a big breaker to strike out Starlin Castro to end the inning.
Rookie Brian Anderson put a nice swing an outside fastball for a solo homer in the second to put the Marlins ahead, but that was all they could get off the lefty Johnson. He needed just 82 pitches in six innings, striking out five.
And he continued the streak of outstanding outings by the Red Sox rotation. All five starters began the season by allowing one run or none in their season debuts. They’ve gone 30 innings, allowing three earned runs for a 0.90 ERA.