An extra special opening
Sox display resilience early in ’18 campaign
Six wins are six wins, no matter how you slice and dice them.
And while the innards of some of their recent victories reveal some gory tendencies in the baserunning and relief department, the 2018 Red Sox are showing they can win ugly just as easily as win pretty.
Maybe more easily.
Even when their glass looks half-empty, they keep flipping it over and filling it right back up.
The Red Sox are 6-1 and yesterday was their second consecutive extra-inning win, this one against the Rays, two days earlier against the Marlins.
Whatever it takes for these Red Sox in this ultra-extended spring training.
When the heavyweights start to appear on their schedule, they may not have ironed out every kink in their game but, for now, they continue to win nearly every game.
That’s got to count, especially with how the Sox won their home opener yesterday — coming back from a 2-0 deficit in the bottom of the ninth and then finishing the deed in the 12th.
“There’s no panic in the dugout, everyone is relaxing and just letting things happen,” said Hanley Ramirez, the hero once again after hitting the game-winning RBI single and then trying to elude a band of giddy teammates chasing him like a security team after an in-game interloper. “But the more you get tight, you know how things get. Stay loose and let the game come to you. That makes it easy.”
Yesterday’s win resembled Tuesday’s finale in Miami in that each starter could do little wrong, meaning it was up to each bullpen to succeed or fail. No big surprise that the Red Sox bullpen and hitting proved superior to the Rays in the end but that sure wasn’t the initial impression.
David Price was in sterling shape, surrendering just three hits (with three walks) in his seven scoreless innings, just a tad better than the start by Yonny Chirinos (five innings, three hits, no walks). The Rays bullpen continued to keep the Red Sox offense in 2017 form, and then Carson Smith coughed up a two-run homer to Matt Duffy in the eighth inning and the Sox came down to their final three outs against a good closer, Alex Colome.
Then the 2018 Red Sox offense showed up.
First Ramirez singled in a run and then still-hot Xander Bogaerts doubled to send the game into extras.
“We had three hits heading into the bottom of the ninth and were able to put up four hits in that ninth inning off Colome who has been extremely tough against us and the rest of the league — that was huge,” said Price. “We’ve done that a couple times this year. That’s what good teams do.”
The just-in-time burst of offense obscured the damage wreaked by Smith’s poorly located fastball, which meant that after a scoreless 10th, spring training surprise Bobby Poyner could come in and hold off the Rays for two solid innings.
He recorded his final out in the 12th on a swinging strikeout of Kevin Kiermaier, who put a more impressive swing on the dirt in frustration than on the last Poyner pitch.
Kiermaier telegraphed the ending to a familiar script in the bottom of the 12th — a leadoff double by Jackie Bradley Jr., a sacrifice bunt by Christian Vazquez, walks — the first intentional — to Mookie Betts and Andrew Benintendi before Ramirez came through.
What choice do the 2018 Red Sox have these days?
When it comes to losing or winning, they’ll take the latter.
Especially when it comes much later.
“It just seems like it’s not a good game unless we play extras,” said Betts. “Once we get into extras, we’ve been here 50 million times. Might as well keep doing it.”
Betts employed some sarcasm there, but there was a serious undertone. The Red Sox have won in extra innings twice and have gone 4-for-4 in their one-run games to date.
That’s not a mirage, no matter who they’re playing.
Good habits are forming.
“I just think it shows we never give up — early in the games, middle of the game, late in the game, we’re going to put together some good at-bats and score runs,” said Betts. “It just seems like late in the game we’ve been kind of doing that, but I think we can do that anytime.”
Bradley echoed the message that the Red Sox truly are not trying to create needless drama or even programming time for NESN.
“I promise you, we’re not trying to play over nine — just things have happened that way and we’ve come back in close games and other teams have come back in close games,” said Bradley. “But, we’ve been able to edge ’em out when we need it the most.”