Gordo: Some Opening Day Optimism
Opening Day is the best day on the calendar... And it's finally here.
Opening Day is finally upon us. 32 Spring Training games, two scrimmages, and an entire World Baseball Classic are all in the rearview mirror. The 162-game regular season begins today.
One of the best feelings as an intense baseball fan is the realization that for the next six months (and hopefully beyond), your favorite team will be on the television in your living room almost every single night. It’s exciting and overwhelming at the same time because it’s such a big part of all of our lives, and once it starts, there’s no turning back, for better or for worse.
Expectations for the 2023 Red Sox vary depending on who you ask. The most optimistic fans believe this team is destined for 90+ wins and a playoff appearance. The most pessimistic fans foresee an injury-riddled team that could approach 100 losses. As is the case with almost anything in life, the team will probably finish somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.
Many fanbases are used to entering seasons simply hoping their team makes the playoffs. There were Mariners fans in their twenties that saw their team make the postseason for the first time in their lives this past season.
But if you are a Red Sox fan in your teens, twenties, or even thirties, entering a season without realistic hopes of a deep postseason run is unusual. Entering a 162-game baseball season with low expectations for your team can be overwhelming, but I’m here to tell you why you should think twice before counting the 2023 Red Sox out before the season even starts, and why there are quite a few things to be excited about heading into the season. After all, Opening Day is a time for happiness and optimism.
For starters, an almost entirely new Red Sox team is about to take the field. Evaluating this team piece by piece compared to last year’s roster, which was derailed by injuries for the majority of the season, isn’t going to do you any good. The truth of the matter is we won’t know how good the 2023 Red Sox will be, on either side of the ball, until we see it.
For the first time since Andrew Benintendi and Rafael Devers came up in 2016 and 2017 respectively, the Red Sox have legitimate high-end young players set to play their first full season in the majors. Triston Casas finished Spring Training slashing .327/.377/.582. That’s good for a .959 OPS. Brayan Bello looked the part and more to finish off last season, posting a 2.59 ERA along with 31 strikeouts across 31.1 September/October innings. These ain’t your Michael Chavis / Bobby Dalbec borderline top 100 prospects. These guys are the future of the Red Sox organization. 2023 is a step in their hopefully long and successful journey in Boston.
Let’s not forget the Red Sox have one more exciting player who has yet to play a full major league season; Masataka Yoshida. The narrative on Yoshida has completely flipped since the Red Sox shocked the baseball world when they invested $105 million to sign the Japanese phenom.
At first, there were anonymous executives who were shocked Yoshida was able to get a team to invest more than $40-50 million in him. Since then, it came to light that the Blue Jays and Dodgers were also very interested in signing Yoshida. He then showed up to camp early and wowed scouts and media members with his sweet swing and better-than-advertised defense.
Yoshida then put the entire baseball world on notice when he slashed .409/.531/.727 in the World Baseball Classic and delivered a dramatic three-run homer to tie the semi-final game against Mexico. Joe Davis and John Smoltz raved about his swing, and how easily they believe it will translate from the NPB to Major League Baseball. Baseball Twitter couldn't help but gawk at what they saw.
Yoshida’s long-awaited MLB debut occurs today, as he’s expected to hit cleanup at Fenway Park. It’s no understatement to say that the success of the Red Sox this season could be directly correlated with just how good the 29-year-old can be in year one.
The end result of the 2023 Red Sox season is also going to be largely impacted by their success (or lack thereof) in the Month of April.
We’ve seen more downs than ups to start recent Red Sox seasons. In 2019, they won just five of their first fifteen games to begin the season. In 2020, they won just three of their first eleven games. In 2022, they won just ten of their first 29 games. Hell, even in 2021 when they finished April 17-10, they got swept by the lowly Orioles in the first series of the season.
For the Red Sox to get where they want to be in 2023, they have to snap that trend. Despite the abundance of injuries to the pitching staff and the generally tamed expectations for this year’s Red Sox team, fans can and should hope for a fast start. Just seven of the team’s first 28 games come against playoff teams from 2022. The first nine games of the season come against the Orioles, Pirates, and Tigers.
The schedule won’t stay easy, however. It all evens out at the end of August when the Red Sox will play thirteen games in a row, with no off days, against the Yankees, Astros, Dodgers, and Astros again. Basically, the Red Sox need to pile up wins early against easier competition to give themselves flexibility to drop a few extra games at the end of the summer.
Singular games across a 162-game schedule can seem insignificant, but these early games against beatable competition can be the difference between a low-80s win total and a mid-80s win total, resulting in a possible playoff berth. Of course, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. But these games all matter if the team finds itself as a fringe playoff contender at season’s end. Even if the team won’t publicly say it, they certainly know it.
Almost equally as important is that it will be tough for players to ignore the noise if they don’t take care of business in the first couple of weeks. We saw how difficult it was for the Red Sox to overcome bad vibes related to Xander Bogaerts’ contract situation at the start of last season. They never did overcome them. According to those who have been close to the team at various points this spring, the overall mood around the team has been very good. To keep it that way, finishing the month of April above .500 is a must.
Opening day is exciting, relieving, and overwhelming all in one. It’s the best day the calendar has to offer. Let yourself enjoy it. Even if you are someone who sees this team losing 100 games, keep an open mind.
There will be plenty of time to angrily pound the keys on Twitter if the team doesn’t perform. But for now, there’s plenty to be excited about, even in a bridge year. And if the bridge in front of us includes impactful seasons from hopeful future mainstays Triston Casas, Brayan Bello, and Masataka Yoshida, then maybe this bridge year won’t be so bad.
After all, 2013 was supposed to be a bridge year, wasn’t it?
Follow Gordo on Twitter @BOSSportsGordo.
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