Red Sox Take First Steps On Road To Respectability With Opening Day Victory
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Baby steps.
If the Red Sox are to fully get past back-to-back last-place seasons, and if they're going to firmly leave the "we don't need an ace" days in the rear-view mirror, then they're going to have to get there with baby steps. Realistically, the borderline miraculous worst-to-first turnaround of 2013 won't ever happen again, and the road back to respectability will have to be taken with baby steps.
On that front, the first steps have been taken.
David Price took the ball in 34-degree temperatures and looked every bit like the ace he's supposed to be, allowing two runs over six innings while striking out 10 batters.
The offense looked plenty capable, particularly the two players -- Travis Shaw and Brock Holt -- who benefited from John Farrell's bold decision-making at the end of the spring. Shaw and Holt combined to go 4-for-10, and two-run homers by Mookie Betts and David Ortiz would prove to provide plenty of scoring for the day.
And defensively, though question marks will surround Hanley Ramirez for a while as he gets situated at first base, he looked just fine. Meanwhile, Betts made a spectacular catch out in right field, a position he's manned just 23 times before in his career.
Across the board, there were baby steps.
"That was a good win," Price, the winning pitcher, said. "I threw the ball well at times, we had some good defensive plays and big hits, and that's what you have to be able to do. And the guys that came in after me, they threw the ball extremely well."
Of course, Marty Walsh won't be spending his Tuesday night making phone calls to map out the Duck Boat parade in late October/early November. The Red Sox won't be adjusting their pennants atop the exterior wall of the press box to make room for the upcoming 2016 championship flag. This was merely a win over the Cleveland Indians, a team that finished one game above .500 and 4.5 games out of the second wild-card spot last season.
While the Tribe did send 2014 Cy Young winner Corey Kluber to the mound on Tuesday, there's little incentive to try to make one win on the opening day of the season into anything more than it is: a baby step.
The Red Sox were in control of the game for most of the afternoon, though it was Cleveland that first threatened to score. Price walked two batters to start the second inning and quickly faced a first-and-third, one-out situation following a flyout to deep right-center. That's where Price pushed down on the gas pedal, striking out Marlon Byrd on four pitches and getting Juan Uribe to flail at a changeup for an inning-ending strike three.
The Sox would take a 2-0 lead two batters later, when Betts sent a 1-1 offering from Kluber over the left-field wall with Jackie Bradley Jr. on first base.
Price again ran into some trouble in the fourth, due in large part to an 11-pitch battle with Mike Napoli following a leadoff single by Francisco Lindor. Though Price won that battle with a strikeout, he gave up consecutive singles and a sacrifice fly, allowing Cleveland to tie the game. But he'd get Collin Cowgill to stare at strike three to end the inning.
The fifth inning could have been trouble, but Betts made a leaping catch over his head to rob Rajai Davis of extra bases to lead off the inning.
"Needed it, needed it," Price said. "It was a big catch. It's the first out of an inning, that's the leadoff guy in Rajai. He's extremely fast, so I know out of the box he was thinking triple. To be able to make that play, that's huge. That's why he's got Jordans on his feet. He can hang in there a little bit longer than anybody else."
The Indians wouldn't threaten for the rest of the day. In fact, Cleveland didn't get a runner to second base after that fourth inning.
Junichi Tazawa, Koji Uehara and Craig Kimbrel combined to pitch the final three innings, giving up zero hits while striking out five. A two-out walk by Kimbrel represented the only blemish on the Boston bullpen.
"They threw the ball well, and that's what we gotta have," Price said. "We won as a unit out there."
Still, the score remained tied until the sixth inning, when Holt drove in Ramirez and Shaw scored on a wild pitch. That score would hold until the top of the ninth, when Ortiz -- already with an opposite-field double and a warning-track flyout to right -- smoked a Trevor Bauer pitch over the right field fence for the 504th home run of his career.
Clearly, yet another useless spring training had no effect on the 20-year MLB veteran.
"When the light goes, Papi goes on," Ortiz artfully explained.
Last year, some folks (OK, the principal owner of the team) may have gotten ahead of themselves after an 8-0 win on Opening Day. Certainly, Henry everyone has learned his their lesson by now.
Betts and Ortiz homered, Price pitched well, Betts made a huge play in right field, and Kimbrel closed it out. The Red Sox played a solid game. A respectable game. If they can simply make a habit of doing that, 2016 has the prospect to at least be a more enjoyable experience than what they've experienced over the past two years.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.