Red Sox offense puts up some historic numbers in opening series of 2023 season

BOSTON -- While questions swirled around the team's pitching staff throughout spring, there was one universal takeaway about the 2023 Red Sox: Their revamped lineup was capable of putting up a lot of runs throughout the season. That was proven correct over the team's opening series against the Baltimore Orioles.

The scoreboard operator at Fenway Park was busy over the last four days, as the Red Sox offense scored nine runs in each of the team's first three games, taking two of three from the Orioles in the process. Not only are those three straight nine-run games a club record, but the Red Sox are just the third team since 1901 to score as many as nine runs in the first three games of a season, joining the 1976 Reds and 1978 Brewers.

Boston also recorded at least 11 hits in the first three games of the season (the Sox clubbed 14 hits in Sunday's 9-5 victory) for just the third time in club history, joining the 1954 and 1902 Red Sox on that short list. 

New center fielder Adam Duvall had the most pop in his bat during Boston's opening series, going 8-for-14 with two homers, three doubles, a triple, and 8 RBI in his first days in a Red Sox uniform. He followed up his two-homer day on Saturday by going 3-for-5 with a pair of doubles on Sunday. Duvall is the first player to ever record six extra-base hits in his first three games with the Red Sox.

But he was not the only scorching bat in the Boston lineup during the opening series. Rafael Devers -- the face of the franchise after signing a monster extension in the offseason -- had multiple hits in all three games, going 7-for-15 with a pair of doubles and four runs scored out of the two-hole in the Boston order.

Alex Verdugo and Masataka Yoshida both had a pair of two-hit games against the Orioles, while Enrique Hernandez has homered in back-to-back games to give some pop to the bottom of the order.

"It's been a lot of fun," Hernandez said of the team's offensive explosion. "Basically we're doing what we expected ourselves to do as a unit. We're probably not going to average nine runs a game all year long, or whatever we're averaging, but I do believe that's what we're capable of. We have some guys that are on the same page as far as keeping the line moving and passing on the baton, and so far it's been great."

"For us, there's not going to be one, set guy that's going to hold this whole team up and keep going. It's going to be every single one of us," Verdugo said after Sunday's win. "Everybody's going to contribute. Everyone's going to come up big and come up at their own times."

It was more than just Boston racking up hits and scoring runs, though. It was when the hits occurred and the runs were scored. The 2022 Boston Red Sox were severely lacking a clutch gene. After coming up short on Opening Day, coming through in the clutch doesn't seem to be a problem with the 2023 Red Sox.

Boston built a 3-0 lead by the third inning on Sunday, when the Orioles started to claw back. But any time Baltimore scraped closer, the Red Sox answered and built to their lead in the bottom innings. When Baltimore tied it at 3-3 in the top of the fifth, Boston took the lead back with a three-run inning of its own thanks to an RBI single by Yoshida and a two-run single by Duvall.

When Baltimore cut it to 6-5 in the top of the seventh, the Sox immediately got those runs back with a two-run inning. Verdugo's RBI single in the eighth provided another insurance run for Boston.

Everyone in the Boston lineup was cooking throughout opening weekend. And while the cooking may not yield such a lopsided number every night, the Red Sox are very confident that there will be plenty of runs to go around all season.

"We're going to put the ball in play. Today wasn't the greatest day for exit velocity, but we put the ball in play when it mattered," manager Alex Cora said Sunday. "The quality of the at-bats, the guys that we have, Yoshida, Verdugo, even Raffy -- he swings and misses but when it matters he puts the ball in play. From top to bottom we believe we're going to put pressure on the opposition. Certain days it won't work, but we're going to grind and do what we did over the weekend.

"It's not sustainable," Cora added. "But we're going to be OK. That's something that we felt in spring training was going to happen, and the quality at-bats are going to stay there. We're going to go through stretches that we don't score, but I don't see too many stretches that we're going to be swinging and missing, and that's important for us."

The 2-1 Red Sox will look to keep the offense going and the Fenway scoreboard operator busy with the Pittsburgh Pirates in town for a three-game set.