A purrr-fect night for a ballgame in Florida

On Tuesday, the Red Sox hopped on their rocket ship bound for Jupiter and played their first night game of the year.

And for the first time since March 24, 2012, they beat the Marlins in a spring training game. (In their defense, they also haven’t played each other in the preseason since 2018.)

Corey Kluber got the ball for his first start of the spring, and threw two shutout innings, in which he struck out one and allowed two hits.

“I threw all my pitches, tried to make it as realistic as possible,” Kluber told reporters, including Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe. “I was able to pick some spots and work on a few things.”

The veteran, whose 10.074 years of service time is fourth-most on the team, also explained his preseason process. “I like to start basic and progress from there,” he said. “The objective today was to throw strikes.”

Moonshots

A couple of baseballs made their way over the outfield wall and into the night, courtesy of Triston Casas and Enmanuel Valdez.

Bobby Dalbec, hitting after Casas in the lineup, narrowly missed going back-to-back with his fellow first baseman, but settled for a double off the right-field wall, instead.

Non-roster highlight

Greg Allen, one of the Red Sox’ many non-roster invitees, had himself a night. The outfielder went 3-for-3 with a pair of doubles and a single.

Barnes shades Bloom?

Tuesday’s game didn’t include a reunion with an old friend.

Matt Barnes, whom the Red Sox designated for assignment and traded to the Marlins last month for Richard Bleier, wasn’t scheduled to pitch on Tuesday (he pitched Monday), so he didn’t stick around to see his old team come to town.

Most players don’t come to every spring training game, especially this early in the preseason, but coupled with what he told the Boston Globe, it sounds like Barnes had another reason for heading home.

“I’m not mad and I don’t have any animosity toward the Red Sox organization because that organization represents so much more than who’s currently running it,” Barnes told the Globe.

Based on the process of elimination, that would be Chaim Bloom; Barnes mentioned Brian O’Halloran, Raquel Ferreira, and Eddie Romero by name.

Barnes spent over a decade in the organization, so he spent more time with the aforementioned trio than Bloom, who was hired in November 2019. And feeling less than warm towards the chief baseball officer makes sense, given the events of the last two months.

But Bloom was also the one who gave Barnes his lucrative $18.75 million contract extension in July 2021, likely more money than teams would have paid him in free agency after the way he pitched following the extension.

After compiling a 2.61 ERA and 0.895 WHIP across his first 38 appearances of the season, he posted 6.48 ERA and 1.620 WHIP in his remaining 22 games, though a bout of Covid impacted his second half.

“Unfortunately, a lot of people in this game make decisions based on a spreadsheet,” Barnes added.

Feline groovy

Is there anything baseball fans love more than an animal on the field?

Tuesday night’s game included some unexpected onfield entertainment in the form of a cat running across the field and into the stands. As it scaled the railing that separates the seats from the camera well, it fell sideways, barely missing landing on NESN’s Tom Caron.

Up in the booth, Dave O’Brien and Kevin Youkilis had a field day with the snafu, which also went viral on Twitter.

Next up

The Red Sox head to West Palm Beach on Wednesday to play the defending-champion Astros at The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, shared home of the Astros and Washington Nationals. Probably pitchers include LHP Richard Bleier, RHP Wyatt Mills, and RHP Kaleb Ort.

James Paxton is scheduled to start on Friday vs. the Twins.

Nick Pivetta threw two innings of live batting practice and is on track to pitch in a spring training game next week.