Today was certainly a good 'calm down, we'll be fine' game. 3 homers, moonshot by Hanley, Benintendi with 5 hits.
Before today's game, we ranked 18th in runs scored- just 5 runs from the middle of the pack.
This really isn't that bad, when you consider all the games missed by injury, illness and bereavement leave.
Only Moreland has played in every game.
Everyday players...
18 Moreland
17 Beni
16 Pedey/Pablo
15 Betts
14 Bogey/HRam
6 JBJ
(16 Young -should only play vs LHPs)
"Hating the Yankees like it's a religion since 94'" RIP Mike.
"It's also a simple and indisputable fact that WAR isn't the be-all end-all in valuations, especially in real life. Wanna know why? Because an ace in run-prevention for 120 innings means more often than not, a sub-standard pitcher covering for the rest of the IP that pitcher fails to provide. You can't see value in a vacuum when a player does not provide full-time production."
Meh. The only key MIA has been JBJ. Plus, let's face it, you can't assume everyone on a team will be healthy all the time and in no need of bereavement or other leave.
Yesterday's 3-dinger win was instructive--for me, anyway. Our biggest shortage so far is home runs--even with those three the Sox are still dead last of 30 MLB teams in hitting them. To me that's a serious power outage that can't easily be explained away by JBJ's absence. By Ortiz's absence, maybe, but not JBJ's.
I'm not saying this team can't bounce back because of course they can. But at the same time, I think what we have seen so far suggests that a repeat of last year is less likely than before the season started.
Sox have 11 home runs as a team, or 3 more than Eric Thames.
This would be less concerting if the pitching staff had not surrendered 24 home runs...
We've averaged 1.5 regulars out per daily line-up.
While injuries are a part of every team's season, we've had a revolving door of sorts.
I'm not making excuses. Injuries are only part of the story, but I do fully expect this team to still finish in the top 5 in runs scored.