Welcome back to Sox Weekly. Today, we’ll cover the first time the Red Sox played a “good team” this past season in the New York Yankees and the Sox playing a “good team” in the Angels and Shohei Ohtani—who the Sox outscored 27-3. Yikes.
Ah the good old Red Sox/Yankees rivalry. It’s been a while since both teams have been good at the same time, so this year really brought the rivalry back to what it once was. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though—the Red Sox first played the Yankees on April 10 this past season at Fenway. I was actually at that game and it did not disappoint at all. The Sox put down the Yankees 14-1 in a glorious three hour and 11-minute affair.
This was an all-around great game. Chirs Sale picked up his first win of the season after he was screwed by Joe Kelly in the opener against the Rays and Mookie Betts went deep for his second of the season. Actually, this was the game when I realized Betts would have a monster season. He went 4-4 with 4 RBIs and had an average of .432 after the game.
Despite a disappointing 10-7 loss, the next game against the Yankees was when we got the old rivalry back and found out that Kelly is an absolute monster. Kelly probably picked the wrong career—I could see him in the UFC.
Like really. Austin slid into second earlier in the game on a forceout and spiked Brock Holt, which led to some select words. When you watch the video, it’s clear Austin purposely goes for Holt’s leg with his cleats. Then, Kelly throws at Austin later in the game and, for some reason, Austin gets upset. He hits his bat on the ground like a whining child that just got raisins for Halloween and charges the mound. Kelly was ready for him and gave him an absolute beating. It was pretty great and I highly recommend rewatching the video of it.
The rubber match saw a gem from Porcello who went seven innings and gave up only two hits in a 6-3 win. After taking on the Yankees, the Sox went on to sweep the Orioles in convincing fashion that really showed how good the Red Sox starting pitching was. Granted, it wasn’t hard to show off our starting pitching against Baltimore … but still. Then came what was thought to be the biggest challenge yet for the Sox—the Anaheim Angels.
The Red Sox absolutely took Ohtani to town and got him out after just two innings in which he allowed four hits and three runs. The Sox went on to win that game 10-1, followed by a sweep of the Angels in the next two games. The Sox proved they were the team to beat after advancing to a 16-2 record—the league’s best start since 1987.
The Sox hit a bit of a speed bump against the A’s, in which the bats just stopped. After a 7-3 win, the Sox lost the next two games 0-3 and 1-4. Again, the pitching seemed to be okay during these two games. Yet looking at the turnout of the season I think these two losses don’t mean much. Considering the Sox won the World Series and all—let’s see how many times we work that into these articles.
