Red Sox Notes: Opening Day lineup (sort of) revealed; team unity at dinner and more

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- With the 2018 regular season opener set for Thursday, Alex Cora has his starting lineup figured out -- mostly.

Cora revealed Mookie Betts will lead off, followed by Andrew Benintendi, Hanley Ramirez, J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts. He added that Jackie Bradley Jr. will hit eighth, followed by Christian Vazquez.

He added that Rafael Devers and Eduardo Nunez will hit sixth and seventh, but he's unsure, for now, who will hit where. Devers is fully recovered from the knee contusion suffered Monday night in an awkward home plate slide.



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Chris Sale will make his fourth career Opening Day start Thursday -- and first as a member of the Red Sox -- in the same ballpark in which he attended his first major league game.

Sale's uncle brought him to the very first game at Tropicana Field -- March 31, 1998 -- almost exactly twenty years ago. From his seat in the Red Sox dugout, Sale pointed to the very section in which he sat that day and recalled getting mustard on a souvenir shirt.

Ironically, the Rays, in observing their 20th anniversary as a franchise, will wear "Devil Rays'' hats Thursday -- the same hats they wore when Sale attended that game.

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The entire Red Sox traveling party -- including coaches, trainers and players, totaling 56 people -- went to dinner Tuesday night in St. Petersburg, with the tab picked up by Eduardo Rodriguez. Rodriguez wanted No. 57 from third base coach Carlos Febles, and for the trade-off, Rodriguez paid for the team dinner.

"It was a good (tab),'' said Cora. "But he has good friends here, man. They helped out. But it was awesome. I've never been with a team where the whole travel group is one room. We had 56 people there. It's something we'll always remember. Whatever happens throughout the season, we can go back to that day. We've been talking about connecting and all that and having fun. At the end of the day, it's what they do. But this is a good group; they care about each other and it was eye-opening. It was pretty cool.'

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Cora is already mapping out lineups for the four-game series. He wants to make sure Eduardo Nunez, who is coming off a winter-long rehab for a knee injury, gets a day off from the turf in Tropicana Field.

"You play all those games in Fort Myers, on natural grass,'' Cora said. "This turf is tough. We've got to make sure we rest them, take care of them and then we move on to Miami.''

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Betts is the team's leadoff hitter, and Cora is committed to keeping him there for the entirety of the season.

"I do feel leading off is going to be a great spot for him,'' said Cora, "and we're not going to change that. That's a conversation we had in January. He asked me, 'Are you going to hit me third later on?' (I told him) 'The goal is to hit you first all the way to the end, the last game of the MLB season. You don't have to worry about that.' The 0-for-4's, the 3-for-4's aren't going to dictate what we're going to do. He's the leadoff guy for a reason. I think he's liking it.''