For one night anyway, the Red Sox followed their ideal blueprint for victory
On the season’s first night, it was enjoyable to see the Red Sox look athletic and energetic, and to watch players perform in roles in which they are not miscast.
If you went to bed before the first pitch was delivered in the Red Sox season opener Thursday night, deciding to let your personal Opening Day come at a more reasonable hour than the 10:10 p.m. start in Seattle, can’t say I blame you.
Our sports day had already provided a bounty, with two Sweet 16 men’s basketball games at the Garden, the NCAA men’s hockey tournament to keep an eye on, and a smattering of early MLB games on television that were actually played in daylight, as a season opener should be.
The mood for most Boston sports fans at that hour wasn’t exactly festive. Leadoff hitter Jarren Duran dug into the batter’s box at T-Mobile Park for the first at-bat of the season just a few minutes after Jayson Tatum’s and the Celtics’ worst habits revealed themselves again in their second loss to the mediocre Hawks in four days.
The Red Sox aren’t inspiring visions of duck boats dancing in fans’ heads these days anyway. I have them going 83-79, and I’m the relative sunshine-day optimist around here. So there will be no judgment if you chose sleep long before the opener’s outcome was decided, or even before it began.
But you missed a good one. Sure did. Maybe one of the better ones the Red Sox will play all season.
The Red Sox beat the Mariners, 6-4, with what passes for this flawed-but-not-untalented roster’s ideal blueprint for a victory, which included:
· An encouraging, No. 2 starter-ish performance from designated staff-ace-before-his-time Brayan Bello? Check.
The 24-year-old Bello allowed 5 hits, no walks, and 2 runs in 5 innings, with four relievers limiting the Mariners to just one more run the rest of the way. Closer Kenley Jansen, one of the more vocal Red Sox this spring about the frugal team-building approach, blew away pinch hitter Luke Raley on three pitches to punctuate matters.
· A reminder that Rafael Devers is one of, oh, a half-dozen players in the American League with the pure hitting talent to plausibly slug his way to a Most Valuable Player award? Check.
Devers went opposite field for a two-run homer and a 2-0 lead in the third inning against Seattle starter Luis Castillo. Devers added a double in the fifth, an inning in which the Red Sox increased their lead to 4-2 on a Triston Casas ground out. If Devers and Casas don’t combine for at least 60 home runs this season, something has gone wrong.
· Timely help from at least one of the unheralded — and admittedly not all that inspiring — offseason additions? Check.
Tyler O’Neill, playing his first game for the Red Sox after six seasons with the Cardinals, crushed the first pitch of the eighth inning for a home run, giving the visitors a much-needed insurance run. (NESN came back from commercial break barely in time for the pitch, in case you were wondering whether the network would be up to that nonsense again this season.) It was O’Neill’s fifth straight Opening Day with a home run, an MLB record.
The two-time Gold Glove winner also made a couple of nice plays in right field on tricky fly balls, one of the night’s reminders that the Red Sox defense is vastly improved. I still cannot believe they tried to get away with Kiké Hernández at shortstop last year.
(And perhaps some of their poor defenders have made progress: In the bottom of the first inning, second baseman Enmanuel Valdez was involved in all three outs, fielding a J.P. Crawford grounder and then making the pivot on a double play to leave Julio Rodriguez stranded at third. It might have taken Valdez five chances to record three outs last year.)
Perhaps most encouragingly, the Red Sox played with an energy and even joy that was mostly absent last season. Bello is not Pedro Martinez and never will be, but he does have a certain charisma on the mound that offers fleeting but undeniable flashbacks to Pedro’s heyday.
After Bello retired the Mariners in the bottom of the fifth without suspense, he walked straight down the dugout steps and into the tunnel. Why? He was attempting to dodge the requisite job-well-done handshakes in a desperate bid to remain in the game. He returned smiling a moment later, his gambit for one more inning having failed, but an excellent impression having been made.
But the most exciting play of the night came in the top of the sixth, when rookie center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela ripped a Tayler Saucedo pitch into left field to lead off the inning. I thought it was a double off the bat. Saucedo probably thought it was a double off the bat. Ichiro, Ken Griffey Jr., and Alvin Davis probably thought it was a double off the bat.
Rafaela did not think it was a double off the bat. He thought bigger, hustling into third base with a headfirst slide for a triple. Now, because he was safe, it must be charted as an admirable display of instincts and daring. Had he been tagged out — making the first out of an inning at third base — we might have had a different response. But it worked.
Credit to the kid, who I suspect will be nine parts exhilarating and one part exasperating as these early weeks play out. Rafaela scored on a flare single by Connor Wong to give the Red Sox a 5-2 lead.
For one night, the season’s first night, it was enjoyable to see the Red Sox look athletic and energetic, and to watch players perform in roles in which they are not miscast.
It’s just one game, but it felt like the Red Sox needed this one. To put the disappointing winter behind them. To get them off to a good start in a series in which they also will have to deal with excellent Mariners starting pitchers George Kirby and Logan Gilbert. To remind us that for all of the low expectations, which are justified, this new season can play out in all sorts of ways.
One game, one win, 161 to go. In their season debut, the Red Sox were worth staying up for. Count that as one expectation they’ve already exceeded.
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