Spring is
finally here. Baseball is back, and temperatures are flirting with 70 degrees
for the first time in what seems like ages. This winter was the coldest one
I’ve ever lived through, and I’m glad to finally refer to it in the past tense.
The Red Sox
wrapped up their first two sets of the season with a record of 4-2. The Sox
looked exceptionally good on Opening Day, when they beat the Phillies 8-0. Clay
Buchholz pitched seven solid innings, which many fans thought proved he could
be a solid number one for the squad. However, six days later, it was clear that
those fans were mistaken.
Buchholz
pitched against the Yankees on Sunday night, and to say that it was a disaster
would be an understatement. The righty allowed seven runs in the bottom of the
first inning, washing away the Sox’s hope of sweeping their archrival in the
first meeting of the two teams in the 2015 season.
Whether it
was the pressure of being on national TV in Yankees Stadium on a Sunday night,
or just a terrible outing, Buchholz had absolutely nothing working for him. Not
only was his pitching dreadful, but he also wasn’t there mentally. As soon as
things started going south for Buch, he lost his head. That was clear not only
because of his appearance out on the mound, but also because he wasn’t carrying
out some of the basic fundamentals of the game that he should have learned in
high school. There were several times when Clay needed to be backing up a
throw, and he instead chose to just stand on the mound and watch, which is
inexcusable, and an embarrassment for the team.
You can’t judge him by this one
start, but for him to go from throwing seven shutout innings in Philly to the
worst start of his career, to me shows that he’s going to be unpredictable this
year, which isn’t what you want out of your number one starter.
While Buchholz was terrible in New
York, he didn’t get any help defensively either. Mike Napoli, who has generally
been pretty good defensively for the Sox, made a painful error at first base,
and the Sox didn’t look all that sharp in the field. Napoli has also struggled
quite a bit at the plate to start the season. He is 1-for-19 to start the
season, and went 0-for-8 in Friday night’s 19-inning marathon game against the
Yankees, which is an incredibly frustrating thing to do as a hitter. The Red
Sox need to find a way to get Napoli out of his slump at the plate, or else it
might be sensible to give Daniel Nava a shot as the starting first baseman.
Even though there were rough spots,
overall the Red Sox have looked pretty good to start the season. Thirty-four
runs over six games is a pretty good number, and one that John Farrell has to
be happy with. Xander Bogaerts has looked really good at the plate so far, and
if he can keep that up, it will be huge for the Red Sox. It has long been a
struggle for the Red Sox to find a shortstop who is able to produce
offensively, and in my mind Bogaerts has the potential to change that.
The Sox have also seen good pitching
from their other starters. Joe Kelly, who wasn’t even expected to make his
first start of the season due to an injury, threw seven solid innings on
Saturday, saving the Red Sox bullpen, which was forced to throw 13 innings
relief the night before. Kelly, like a lot of other guys on the Red Sox staff,
is somewhat of a question mark in my mind regarding how he’ll be able to
perform this year, but he looked really sharp on Saturday in New York.
The Sox look to keep on rolling this
week as they take on the Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles at Fenway
Park.
Contact Jasper Goodman at jgoodman@radiovermont.com. Follow
him on Twitter @Jasper_Goodman.
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