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Sox Season Starts with Win

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Opening Day 2016There’s simply no better way to start a campaign than with a win. And that’s what we got today, Opening Day 2016, with the Red Sox beating the Indians 6-2 in the start to Boston’s 116th American League season.

The game, postponed from Monday for the cold (the first postponement for the Red Sox on Opening Day since 2009), actually delivered a couple wins for Red Sox fans.

Of course, there’s the score, the only thing that matters. But surely the performance of new Sox ace David Price lived up to its billing. Price earned his first win of the season throwing 103 pitches and allowing two runs on five hits with two walks. He struck out 10.

With Tuesday’s start Price became the first Red Sox pitcher to make his debut with the club in an Opening Day start since David Wells in 2005. And with the win he joined Pedro Martinez (1998), Gary Peters (1970), Dick Ellsworth (1968) and Jim Bagby (1938) as the only five pitchers with a win in their Red Sox debut as an Opening Day starter.

Call the Sox bullpen winners today, too, for a hit-free 3.0 inning performance. Junichi Tazawa opened the 7th, followed by Koji Uehara in his new 8th inning slot, and the debut of new closer Craig Kimbrel.

In all, Red Sox pitchers struck out 15, their most since at least 1913 in an Opening Day game.

David Ortiz, already a double under his belt with the Sox up 4-2 in the 9th inning, hit career home run #504, his fifth ever Opening Day roundtripper and his first to start a season since 2011. The Sox also got two hits apiece from Mookie Betts (including a home run), Brock Holt, Hanley Ramirez, and Travis Shaw (including three strikeouts). Boston’s 11 hits were their most on Opening Day since April 1, 2013 (13).

Dustin Pedroia, who leads all active players with a .421 AVG on Opening Day (minimum 35 plate appearances in openers), ended his Day One hitting streak Tuesday going 0-for-4 with a walk and run scored. Pedroia had hit in all nine career Opening Days since 2007, the longest such streak in club history since Carl Yastrzemski’s 13 Opening Day games from 1968-1980.


Sunday Morning Odds ‘n Ends

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A few thoughts at the start of this Opening Week, mere hours away from the first Red Sox game of 2016:

  1. Doubles, a traditional tool of the Red Sox, were scarce in 2015. In April last season the Sox had just 22, the fewest in the first month of play since 1981. For the entire season the 2015 Red Sox had the fewest road doubles of any any team in baseball for the second year in a row. Contrast that with the 2013 club’s 158 road doubles, the 4th most in MLB.
  2. The Marlins Dee Gordon and Phillies/Blue Jays Ben Revere hit .333 last season on the road, good for the best road AVG in baseball (minimum 200 at-bats).  They were followed by Buster Posey (.330), Joey Votto (.326), and one-time Red Sox Yoenis Cespedes (.320). The best Red Sox road AVG was .291 by Xander Bogaerts, ranked 32nd of all MLB players. David Ortiz‘ 22 home runs on the road last season tied him with Nolan Arenado for 3rd most in baseball. Big Papi has the most career doubles of any active player (584).
  3. Travis Shaw has a healthy .435/.458/.696 slash line in 23 career at-bats vs the Red Sox Opening Day rival Indians, all coming last year. For the past five seasons (minimum 100 at-bats), Dustin Pedroia is 40-for-130 (.308), good for the 10th best mark against Cleveland in that time. The Mariners Kyle Seager is 46-for-121 (.380), the best AVG against The Tribe in that time.

  4. Monday’s game, weather permitting, will the first time the Red Sox have opened a season against the Indians in Cleveland. The other three times (1979, 1977 and 1962) were at Fenway. Since 1980 the Sox are 46-48 at Progressive Field (what was called Jacobs Field until 2008)

  5. Game time temperature is forecasted to be 35ºF on Opening Day in Cleveland. The Red Sox are 4-6 in games played under 40ºF since 2000. The last game they played in such cold conditions was April 27, 2012 against the White Sox in Chicago. Boston won 10-3. Cold weather suited Paul Konerko just find. The three-time All-Star collected the most hits (32) since the year 2000 in 111 “cold plate” appearances of under 40ºF. The picture here, incidentally, is a snowy Progressive Field on Opening Day in 2007.
  6. Last year there were 68 major league players with 50+ walks, the lowest such tally in the past 20 years. In 1999 there were 139 such players.
  7. Alex Rodriguez leads many categories among active players, including home runs per at-bat. On average, he’s gone yard once every 15.05 ABs. David Ortiz is 5th among actives with a 16.11 rate. Interestingly, Hanley Ramirez and Sox newcomer Chris Young  are 35th and 37th among actives in this category, averaging a round-tripper every 24.18 and 24.56 ABs, respectively. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire dominated this category with Bonds belting HRs every 6.52 at-bats in 2001, the best single season rate ever recorded. McGwire’s career average of 10.61 ABs per HR eclipsed the longstanding record of Babe Ruth (11.76).
  8. The Red Sox are 51-49 in 100 years of Opening Day games. Over those 100 games, their most runs scored are 15 (in 1973). Six times they were shut out (most recently in 1976). Twice in the past hundred years they’ve smacked a club-best 5 home runs on the first day of the season, including last year’s opening in Philadelphia (and in 1965).
  9. Monday marks the anniversary of Red Sox Hideo Nomo‘s no-hitter against the Orioles in 2001, the earliest no-hitter in MLB history, the first no-hitter in Camden Yards history, and the first MLB game called by a subdued Don Orsillo,

Spring is done

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Ironically, though spring just started on March 20th, spring training is over for the Red Sox, who finish the 2016 exhibition program at 14-18-1.

Not sure how you feel about spring training games. No doubt, it’s good to hear the crack of the bat after a long off-season, but the games themselves are mostly unfulfilling.

Even these last two games of the exhibition slate were mostly hollow affairs, save for the uniqueness of playing them in Montreal’s cavernous Olympic Stadium. The last time the Red Sox played there was a Tim Wakefield start on July 17, 2001, an 11-7 loss that featured home runs from Scott Hatteberg, Trot Nixon, and Manny Ramirez.

No current Red Sox players ever appeared in a a major league game at Olympic Stadium. Only 28 active players (including David Ortiz) were even in the major leagues when the Montreal Expos last played there in 2004.

Your correspondent toured Olympic Stadium in the late 1980s, but I didn’t get to see a game, unfortunately. Coming from Boston at the time, I marveled at its size and, even then, its anachronistic “futuristic” architecture, but also at its soullessness that’s so contrary to the people and architecture of its environs.

Anyhow, enough of that.

Spring Training Wraps Up

Before heading to Montreal for the weekend, the Sox finished their 5th spring at what’s officially called the Fenway South Spring Training and Player Development Complex in Fort Myers, Florida. The club sold out all 15 of their home games there this season.

Red Sox Spring Training Records 2002-16At 14-18-1, the 2016 Red Sox finished with a .438 win percentage, though any correlation to that and real-world play is difficult to find, though each of the World Championship teams since 2004 got at least to the .500 mark in their respective camps.

Still, drawing a connection isn’t worth the effort. The World Series-bound 1975 Red Sox, who finished atop the division with 95 regular season wins, were an unfathomable 1-20 that spring.

2016’s spring record lands the Sox toward the bottom of the Grapefruit League standings, dwarfed by the strong performances of the Nationals, Blue Jays, Twins, Tigers and Astros.

On to Cleveland

NESN’s Tom Caron said it repeatedly on Saturday, the Red Sox opener in Cleveland is “weather permitting.” Right now the forecast calls for a strong chance of snow, a brisk northerly wind and 35ºF conditions at game time. A chance of rain exists all week in Cleveland, so the clubs may have to just tough it out.

The Sox have opened a season against the Indians three times before (1962, 1977, and 1979) but always in Boston at Fenway. This is the first Red Sox season opener in Cleveland.

Red Sox ace David Price, 18-5 with a 2.45 ERA last season between the Tigers and Blue Jays, will make his fourth straight Opening Day appearance where he owns a 2-1, 2.48 ERA record.

Price will be the first pitcher to make his Red Sox debut with an Opening Day start since David Wells in 2005. Since 1979, only other pitcher to do that was Pedro Martinez in 1998.

The Indians will counter Price with Corey Kluber. He was 9-16, 3.49 ERA in 32 starts last season. He owns a 1-2, 4.91 ERA record against the Red Sox in seven career games, six starts.


Sunday Morning Odds ‘n Ends

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A few thoughts on the Easter Sunday morning, just eight days before Opening Day:

  1. Last year in Late & Close situations (defined as a game in the 7th inning or later and the batting team either leading by a run, tied, or has the potential tying run on base, at bat, or on deck), new Red Sox pitchers Craig Kimbrel and Carson Smith owned the 4th and 5th most strikeouts in the game, 71 and 70, respectively. That’s the good news. The bad is that the Yankees Dellin Betances had the most (103) followed by new Yankees pitcher Aroldis Chapman (85).

  2. Dustin Pedroia is just 18 hits from the 1,500th of his career. Newcomer Chris Young needs 23 to his 1,000th. David Ortiz is 16 from his career 600th double. Pablo Sandoval is five games from his 1,000th (and five errors from his 100th).
  3. The Red Sox most wins to start a season since 1913 was six in 1918. They’ve opened a season with five straight wins four times, most recently in 1999. Their most losses to open a season is eight in 1945. The Sox have opened with 6 straight losses twice, most recently in 2011. The club’s record for hitting to open a season since 1913 is 20 games by Eddie Bressoud in 1964.
  4. Monday is the 30th anniversary of the Red Sox acquisition of Don Baylor from the Yankees for Mike Easler. Baylor would strikeout a career-high 111 times that season, but also belt 31 home runs (6th most in the American League) and knock in 94 RBI on Boston’s march to the World Series against the Mets. Baylor would win his 3rd Silver Slugger award that year.
  5. In 2015 there were 508 comeback wins in the American League (the Red Sox had 27), the largest from being down seven runs (the Sox’ largest was being down four runs). There were 501 blown leads (36 for the Sox), 99 walk off wins (3 for Boston), and 105 walk off losses (8 for the Sox).
  6. No baseball club had a better batting average last season when facing an opposing starter for the 2nd or 3rd time than the Red Sox. They batted at .288 and .302 in the 2nd and 3rd appearances, respectively, compared with .252 (12th in MLB) when seeing him for the first time.
  7. The Sox schedule to start the season is three games at Indians and three at Blue Jays before the home opener with three against the Orioles, four more against the Blue Jays and three against the Rays. They’re then back on the road for three at Astros, two at Braves followed immediately by two more with the Braves back at Fenway. Boston then hosts the Yankees for three before heading out to the White Sox for three and then over to the Bronx to face the Yankees again for three more. When all is said and done, that’s the first 32 games of 2016 through May 8. All eight of those clubs except for the White Sox and Braves had better full season records than Boston, all but three had .500+ seasons in 2015.
  8. Boston and Cleveland have opened the season against each other three times before: April 5, 1979 (a 7-1 Red Sox win), April 7, 1977 (a 4-5 loss), and April 10, 1962 (a 0-4 loss).
  9. The Indians and Red Sox have played 2,015 regular season games against each other, with Cleveland leading the all-time series 1,034-973. The Indians and Yankees (1,161-962) are the only two AL teams against which the Red Sox have an all-time losing record.

Red Sox in Month One

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Red Sox Wins Over First 30 Games

Stats help put it in perspective. Excluding the blip of the 2013 season, the Red Sox have averaged over the past seven seasons just under 15 wins for their first 30 games. They’ve played .493 ball in the early going during that time. Sure enough, in the Championship years of 2004, 2007, and 2013 Boston got off to winning records, besting opponents with 19, 20, and 20 wins, respectively.

After a tough 2014 season, and despite a thrilling win on Opening Day, the first 30 games of 2015 ended with just 13 wins, the fewest since 12 in 2012. It was the 45th time since 1914 that the Sox started the first 30 games of a season with a sub .500 record.

As your correspondent reminded you at the start of last season, just nine teams have won the World Series since 1914 when opening the season with a sub .500 win percentage over the first 30 games.

Since 1914, the Sox most wins over the opening 30 is 24 (.800) in 1946. The nadir was just five (.167) in 1932.

Farrell’s Hotseat

Much is being said and written about the importance of a “win now” approach as the Red Sox enter the 2016 regular season. Manager John Farrell, his job likely on the line, surely feels the importance of getting off to a good start.

FirstMonthDoubles2000-15Sox offense in Month One of 2015 didn’t foretell the disastrous season to come, save for one anomaly unseen by Red Sox Nation for some time: the absolute paucity of doubles.

The Sox had 22 doubles April of 2015, the fewest since the 1981 club collected 21 in the first month of a season. Contrast that with Boston’s 58 doubles in the first month of the 2013 season, the most doubles by an eventual World Series winner in the first month of a season since 2000.

Despite the doubles drop-off, Boston scored 113 runs that first month of 2015. Only Toronto (122) and Kansas City (119) scored more across baseball.

Never In-Balance

Starting with the silly t-shirts in spring training camp, the “no ace” Sox pitching strategy, if one can call it that, had trouble written all over it right from the start.

With 12 wins and 10 losses came a bloated 5.04 first month team ERA that rivaled that of another best forgotten season, the Valentine’s massacre of 2012. That year, Boston opened with a 5.54 ERA in April. It turns out that 2015 was just the 11th season since at least 1913 that Boston’s team ERA was 5.00+ in the first month.

Screen Shot 2016-03-24 6.18.10 PMThe Red Sox never seemed in balance in 2015. Having scored the third most runs in baseball in April is only valuable if you don’t give up so many at the same time. But instead, Red Sox pitchers allowed 119 runs that first month, the most in baseball and more than twice as many as the Cardinals (55).

From third best to the cellar, Boston offense all but disappeared in May. Just 82 runs scored was the fewest by any MLB club that month. Still, offensive production rallied and stayed in the top third of all major league clubs for every remaining month but July.

The damage, of course, was done. By August 1st, in last place at 47-58, even another strong month of offense couldn’t overcome the Sox pitchers’ seeming inability to protect a lead. Time and again, Boston needed to come from behind for a win. In 40 of the club’s 162 games, Boston left the first inning behind in the score.

Time for Predictions

Spring Training isn’t a real indicator of regular season performance. That said, the Sox look solid offensively again this year. There’s no reason to believe Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts won’t have great seasons. Dustin Pedroia says (again) he is healthy. David Ortiz will experience the joys (and perhaps pressures) of his final season. One would expect Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval have something to prove. Travis Shaw has had a monster spring, for whatever that’s worth.

The arrival of David Price, a legitimate ace with a 2.45 ERA last season, at the head Boston’s rotation is unquestionably good news. The early injuries to Eduardo Rodriguez and reliever Carson Smith, on the other hand, are disappointments. Smith, a lights out reliever, is said to be down for at least the first month. Clay Buchholz is not an ace but more of the wild card in the deck. Rick Porcello, with his 12.00 ERA over 3 spring starts is, well, less than inspiring. Joe Kelly and Steven Wright, on the other hand, have made their cases to be in the rotation somewhere.

We’re just a few days to the start of the season. 181 days later, as we turn the calendar to October, the regular season will close with the Blue Jays at Fenway.

Now’s the time when predictions are worth something. Feel free to record and lock in yours in the comments section below. Just where will our Sox be in the standings after 30 games? Where will they be on October 2nd?