Redsox lose 3-2 on Sunday; Dropped opening series 3-1 to Rangers.
The Red Sox lost their season-opening series after three consecutive losses to the Texas Rangers. Even in the game they won they were fairly unimpressive. All offseason this series was fairly intriguing. We had the first call-up of the big 3, Kristian Campbell's MLB debut, Alex Bregman's Red Sox debut, and what the team would look like with Raffy Devers now as DH. There were plenty of other storylines as well. Eovaldi facing his old team and Chris Martin coming out of the bullpen versus the team he played for last year. As a fan of the MLB, there was talent all over the field for both teams, culminating with Jacob deGrom's MLB return, since his arm injury.
As for the Red Sox, Wilyer Abreu was phenomenal. After an offseason of consistently being the center of trade talks, he started the season with a 3-for-3 with two home runs, four Rbi's, and drew a walk. Kristian Campbell was also incredible for the entirety of the series. In his first major league game, he got his first career hit and walked. Then throughout the weekend, he had his first MLB homerun, and two multi-hit games while hitting a .429 average (6/14).
Other than that there's not much else that was good. Duran was decent, but not on the level of Wilyer and Campbell. He had a double and a stolen base in the first game, a stolen base on Friday, and got the game-tying run on base in the 9th inning, during today's series finale. Unfortunately, quite a few players struggled. Casas didn't do much. Though I'm not very concerned with him. His eye looked good, he wasn't chasing outside of the strike zone very much, but he also didn't get any help from the home plate umpire, and had a few strikeouts as a result of that. Bregman looked good but ultimately didn't have a ton of impact behind the plate. His ability to make routine plays in the infield proved to be one of his best qualities and definitely was a reason the Sox signed him. I say this because Raffy always made tough plays, but it was the basic routine plays that sometimes felt rushed a led to errors here and there.
Now the tough part. Raffela Devers first series as a designated hitter was pretty rough. Not only did he have the worst start of his career, he made MLB history in a fashion that most people want to forget. For the series, Devers went 0/16 with 12 strikeouts. If there's a silver lining in this streak to start the year, like Casas, Raffy wasn't really chasing out of the zone. He just couldn't make contact, which lessens the scenario from utterly disastrous. The broadcast team quite frequently pointed out that his timing is way off, specifically on fastballs, which is uncharacteristic of him.
I would be lying if I didn't say I am a tad bit concerned about him. Not in a sky is falling way but in the sense of Raffy's mindset. Everyone knows that Raffy wears his heart on his sleeves. When he's doing well, he always has a huge smile on his face. However, when he is not, you can see that he is being his hardest critic. So the worry is that in big slumps he is going to stay down on himself, which leads to a longer cold streak than we are used to. I fear that keeping his mind only on hitting, doesn't allow for him to make an inning-saving play that gives him that mental boost and clear mind to go up to the plate freely. I hope that I am wrong in that assessment because ultimately the Red Sox need Raffy to be good, for them to have success.
All of that being said, with as bad as Raffy was at the plate, he wasn't nearly the reason they dropped the first series. Did he contribute to their losses? Absolutely, but the Red Sox had many other problems. Firstly, I don't want to sell the Rangers short. They're a solid team. Eovaldi probably deserved to win on Thursday's season opener. Houck was average in his first start of the season and had a poor finish resulting in two earned runs in the sixth inning before being pulled. Ultimately, the reason they lost this series is their bats though. On Friday, the Sox left eight runners on base, ten on Saturday, and eleven runners today. This will never be a winning recipe.
It's the first series of the year, so things happen. Players are in new roles, all over this team. A month from now and these results are persisting? Then yes, this could turn ugly quickly, but for now, let the season unfold, and what better team to get on track against, than the next series against a divisional team in the Orioles. It is going to be a tough matchup, there's no doubt about it.
