On Thursday morning, Alex Cora sat in an interview room crammed to the brim with media and spoke about how vital it was to begin the season off on the correct foot.
“It’s always good to play good baseball early,” the Red Sox supervisor mentioned. “I think the brand of baseball was really good (in spring training), and hopefully that translates here.”
“Last year is in the past, right?” he requested, hoping the query would turn out to be rhetorical in a way of hours.
But on Thursday afternoon, the pitching principally seemed like the identical outdated song-and-dance: off-key and devoid of rhythm.
What started as an early 1-1 tie ended as a 10-9 tug-of-war, with the Red Sox on the shedding finish to the Baltimore Orioles.
By the top of the highest of the fourth, beginning pitcher Corey Kluber and rookie reliever Zack Kelly had mixed for six walks and 6 strikeouts. The half-inning that had begun with a 1-1 tie ended with the Orioles main 5-1, with all of the runs charged to Kluber, who was charged with the loss on the finish of the day.
It was a profession outing for the two-time Cy Young Award-winning pitcher, however not in a great way. His 4 walks tied a career-high solely reached eight occasions in his first 12 big-league seasons. Only as soon as in 31 begins final yr did he difficulty greater than two walks; he led all of MLB with a minuscule 1.2 BB9.
Ryan Brasier escaped designation for task all offseason, however did nothing to affirm that call in his first outing of the yr. Taking over within the high of the fifth, he started his 2023 by hitting a batter. Kiké Hernández helped him out by igniting a double play, however the 35-year-old righty couldn’t get that third out. When he lastly walked off the mound on the finish of the inning, he’d allowed three earned runs on two hits, walked two, and had three stolen bases towards him.
The Red Sox spent the offseason curating a roster of pitchers who excel at limiting walks and hitters who draw them, then opened the season by failing on each counts. The pitching workers walked eight batters within the first 5 innings; the lineup drew one by way of the identical span.
By the top of the highest of the ninth, the pitching workers had allowed 25 Orioles baserunners, the second-most in Opening Day historical past. They allowed 26 in 1926, famous Alex Speier of the Boston Globe. The Orioles drew 9 walks, the Red Sox solely three.
If there’s one factor commendable about Game 1, it’s that the Red Sox offense didn’t take the Orioles onslaught laying down. Not utterly, at the least.
In the pregame ceremonies, Rafael Devers was launched as “the third baseman who will remain in Boston for the next decade,” and from begin to end was one of many solely causes to applaud. Batting second within the lineup, the 26-year-old third baseman went 2-for-5 with two doubles, two runs, and an RBI groundout that put the Red Sox on the board within the backside of the primary.
The residence crew squandered a bases-loaded scenario within the backside of the fourth, however rallied a number of occasions in later frames. Masataka Yoshida (single) and Triston Casas (groundout) minimize an 8-2 deficit to 8-4 with an RBI apiece within the backside of the sixth. Casas got here up with the bases loaded and added on with a sac fly within the backside of the eighth. The Red Sox scored two extra runs within the ninth, to complete inside one of many Orioles, earlier than dropping the season opener.
‘Tis higher to have battled and misplaced 10-9 than laid down and accepted 8-2, proper?
“I don’t know what the record was (last year), but it felt like there were a lot of games that we stopped, not playing, but we stopped producing,” Cora famous pregame.
On that entrance, at the least, he was proper about Thursday.
“We battled, we put traffic (on the bases), I think, offensively, we did a lot of good things,” the supervisor noticed postgame.
However, he additionally acknowledged that they didn’t make the most of the brand new guidelines the best way the competitors did, and that harm them badly; Baltimore stole 5 of the brand new, bigger bases, Boston zero.
Cora stays winless in 5 Opening Days as supervisor.
“It’s always disappointing,” he mentioned. “You always want to win that first one. We’ll try again next year.”
It’s not superb to lose Game 1, particularly at residence, in entrance of a sold-out crowd that confirmed up for baseball in 38-degree climate after a mixed-bag offseason, however shedding on Opening Day is way from a dying knell. The Red Sox misplaced their first video games of the season in three of their 4 championship years this century.
There are 161 video games left to play. They have time to tinker with the roster, to make changes, to seek out type, to get key gamers again from the injured record.
But the prospect to begin the season off on a excessive notice and create even a modicum of momentum from the leap is gone, and if the Red Sox can’t clear up the pitching workers, the water gained’t be very soiled in Boston this yr.
Source: www.bostonherald.com