Calm Down, The Red Sox Haven’t Proved A Thing

So the Red Sox are an MLB best 8-1 right out of the gate.  Cool!  They still haven’t proved anything to anyone.  There is still 153 games left in the season everyone.  R-E-L-A-X!  We’re all excited for the hot start.  Best in franchise history actually.  But let’s go over a few things here so that we can all calm down and get back to earth.  First of all, they’ve played crap for opponents.  Hard to get excited when they’ve destroyed possibly the two worst teams in baseball so far.  Second, there bullpen is still a huge question mark outside of Kimbrell and Barnes.  Additionally, this lineup is very hit or miss, literally.

Their Opponents Are Trash

I’m sorry when I say this, the Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins are complete dumpster fires of organizations this year.  Derek Jeter literally traded away the organization to start anew.  Funny how he traded the best player to the Yankees huh?  If the Miami Marlins get 60 wins, it’ll be a miracle.  The Tampa Bay Rays aren’t much better, many have predicted them to finish last in the division.  If it wasn’t for a crapping of the pants by Joe Kelly and Carson Smith on opening day, this team would be 9-0.  Tampa Bay also traded away it’s one and only decent player when they let Evan Longoria go to San Francisco.

It’s often said don’t look too much into the beginning of the season.  But I’m pretty sure that you won’t hear much good come from the Marlins and Rays.  Now let’s not take anything away from the fact that the Red Sox did what they had to do.  Beat the teams they were supposed to.  This team is coming off back to back division titles, something they’ve never done in franchise history.  But lets not anoint them World Series champs yet.

Room For Improvement

The offense has started off slow but has seemingly picked up over the past several games.  The bullpen has been up and down too, and opening day wasn’t the greatest first impression.  Kimbrell has proven that he’s still legit.  Matt Barnes had a hiccup against Tampa Bay but has proven that he’s a legitimate setup guy.  Bobby Poyner and Marcus Walden had good springs but Walden especially has been hit hard.  The starting pitching has been lights out but the bullpen gives us heart attacks.

Xander Bogaerts is playing lights out and boy did he need a good start.  He needs to keep this up too if he wants to prove that he’s for real.  Jackie Bradley Jr has once again proven he’s a flash in the pan type of player.  The Red Sox should really explore a potential trade for him this season at the deadline, especially if you can get a bullpen arm out of the deal.  Hanley Ramirez has had a pleasantly surprising season as well.  He had two strong games in Miami and hasn’t been a complete fool…yet.  And Mookie and continuing to do Mookie things being MVP like.

They have a huge series coming up against the Yankees.  Yeah that team that got Giancarlo Stanton who already had not one but two games of five strikeouts.  If they can take the series from the Yankees then maybe, just maybe, we can start to believe something is here.  But remember, it’s still April.  Ultimately, we need to see this down the stretch against the likes of Cleveland and Houston.

–Brian Berard (@RockyBerard)