As far as home openers go, this one left a lot to be desired
Friday afternoon’s festivities were wonderful — except for the main event, the ballgame.
Good thing the outcome of the home opener doesn’t always turn out to be a barometer for how the Red Sox season will play out.
If that were the case, the only conclusion to take away from the Red Sox’ 8-4 loss to the Twins in Fenway Park’s 2022 premiere is that we’re in for one dull ache of a season.
Friday afternoon’s festivities were wonderful — except for the main event, the ballgame. The sky was sunny, the air comfortable crisp, and Fenway’s renovations — including a bar and deck area above the bleachers in right field — fit in with the familiar aesthetic. The ol’ place looked gorgeous.
The pomp and circumstance of the pregame ceremony hit a respectfully somber note when popular former second baseman and broadcaster Jerry Remy, who died from cancer at 68 in late October, was honored as part of a tribute to past Red Sox who died since we were last here. Remy is being honored with a patch on the uniforms this season, and he’ll never be far from fans’ hearts and minds.
Jackie Robinson, who broke the Major League Baseball color barrier 75 years ago Friday, was honored leaguewide with a day in his name. Mo Vaughn, the last Red Sox player to wear Robinson’s universally retired No. 42, was on hand, with his 9-year-old son Lee throwing out the first pitch.
Vaughn, still possessing charisma in abundance, stood as a reminder of how a thrilling win on Opening Day can make a fan feel awfully good about what’s to come. His walkoff grand slam against the Mariners on Opening Day at Fenway in 1998 rallied the Red Sox from a 7-2 ninth-inning deficit. Twenty-four years later, Vaughn’s slam remains the ultimate reminder that surrender is never allowed on Opening Day.
This is where we should note that the 2004 Red Sox lost their Fenway debut to the Blue Jays, 10-5, with the bullpen giving up six runs over the final two innings. Ellis Burks hit cleanup, while David Ortiz hit sixth. They dropped to 2-3. There was a long way to go. Late October, as you might recall, went better than early April.
The home opener is one game among 162, not an indicator of certainty in either direction. But it would have been satisfying, and maybe a little reassuring given that the Red Sox went 3-3 on their season-opening road trip and looked every bit the part of a .500 team, to have one or two yeah-I’d-like-to-see-thats checked off the wish list.
How about a big Fenway debut for star free agent pickup Trevor Story? He did pick up his first hit at his new baseball home, a single to center in the fifth. And he flashed shortstop range at his new position, second base, in making a lunging catch of a Max Kepler liner in the first.
But Story also struck out three times while batting from the No. 6 spot, including the second-to-last out of the game. He’ll put plenty of dents in — and baseballs over — the Green Monster before the season is through, but the wall had no reason to fear him Friday.
What about a huge game for Xander Bogaerts? Based on the rousing cheers during player introductions, fans seemed to be fully in the classy shortstop’s corner in the wake of the news that the Red Sox essentially offered him a one-year, $30 million extension on his current below-market contract, the shortstop version of the insulting lowball offer made to Jon Lester eight years ago. But it wasn’t Bogaerts’s day, either. He went 0 for 4 with three strikeouts. “He’s off-balance, chasing pitches,’’ said manager Alex Cora.
If part of the front office’s reasoning for not offering Bogaerts an extension commensurate in years and salary with his fellow high-end shortstops is a belief that he is going to have to change positions in the near future, they got at least one example for their evidence pile. With the infield in, runners on second and third, and one out in the fifth, Gary Sanchez grounded a two-run single to the left of a diving Bogaerts, giving the Twins a 6-1 lead. It wasn’t an easy play, but one a shortstop with hopes of having impressive Defensive Runs Saved stats has to make.
Red Sox fans did get to witness a couple of impressive pitching performances, but they came from Twins starter Joe Ryan (6 innings, 5 hits, 0 walks, 7 strikeouts, and a solo home run to Alex Verdugo), and the middlemen out of the Red Sox’ bullpen after starter Nick Pivetta required 54 pitches to get through two innings, spotting the Twins a 4-0 lead before he was yanked.
The Red Sox received a combined four hitless innings from Phillips Valdez, Ryan Brasier, and Austin Davis, but Hirokazu Sawamura gave up two runs on the Sanchez single in the fifth, and Matt Barnes, still fighting himself, coughed up two more in the ninth. We may be used to the parade of relievers and the way staffs are manipulated these days, but it turns the game into a drag (this one took 3 hours 33 minutes). It would help if Pivetta, the alleged No. 2 starter at the moment, could be something more than an edgier Matt Clement.
The Red Sox bats did show some life in the eighth. Jackie Bradley Jr. and Kiké Hernández roped to cut the deficit to 6-2, and a Rafael Devers two-run homer — now there’s something fans came to see — made it 6-4. But the rally sputtered, and after the Twins tacked on two against Barnes, the Sox went quietly in the ninth.
Every home opener is special, but this was a reminder that not all will be long remembered.
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