And that's the best thing I can say about it at the moment.
The first week or so of the season is always wonky. Everyone's top pitchers all line up for basically the only time all season. At the same time, though, none of them are in physical condition to dominate. So you get a coin flip of which pitcher happens to get the feel of things at which time of the game.
On the other hand, all the hitters are still figuring things out. Maybe it's their timing. maybe it's a new role with the team. Maybe both. Line-ups are a bit weird as Cora tries to get everyone that "first at-bat" under their belts as soon as possible.
Schedules are also a mess with day games and night games tossed into a bowl and pulled out seemingly at random.
Which is a way to say, whether a team starts 5-0 or 0-5, you can't read much into it. It's not an indication of who the team is.
Although, I'd prefer to have gone 5-0.
Thankfully they won that first one, or we'd have to hear all those annoying retellings of how often a team that starts 0-3 wins whatever.
But, they didn't go 0-5. They started the season with that important victory. A solid pitching performance, and solid hitting. Exactly what you want from an opening game. And, despite the loss, they got more of the same in game two. If Crochet and Houck are going to be those pitchers all season, the Sox are going to win a lot of games.
The next two games were one-run losses. Again, solid from both sides. Again, both sides of the ball you can assume will be better than that the rest of the year.
The fifth game in five days was a little more lopsided after making the cross country flight without a day off. Honestly, if you went though the schedule before the season, those are the types of games you'd probably circle as schedule losses.
So, even at 1-4 the Sox are in a very good spot. Raffy will start crushing it soon, adding a needed element to the line-up. Looks like they have their ace for the foreseeable future. I'm definitely looking forward to October Baseball.
I can't wait.
