McAdam: Confident and prepared, Red Sox pile up the wins while they can

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- In time, there will be slumps. Injuries, too. Balls that are now falling in will be caught. Plays that are now being made will be flubbed. Things will, as they always do, turn. Nothing lasts forever.

But for now, three weeks into the season, 16 games into the schedule, the Red Sox are some sort of machine, gobbling up wins, rolling over opponents, and showing no sign of stopping.

It's to the point where it is difficult -- if not impossible - to find fault with their game.

Offense? On Tuesday night, the Red Sox pounded out a season-high 15 hits on their way to a 10-1 pasting of the Los Angeles Angels. They smashed six homers, including three by Mookie Betts alone. They now lead the majors in on-base percentage, doubles and extra-base hits. They're averaging 6.19 runs per game and in eight of their last nine games, they've had an inning with at least four runs.

Pitching? Through 16 games, their starting pitchers have allowed either one run or none, a remarkable achievement. In almost a third of their games (five) this season, including Tuesday night, they've yielded four hits or fewer. They lead all of baseball in ERA and WHIP, arguably the two most-important statistical measuring sticks for a staff.

Defense? Only one Red Sox player has made an error this season: Rafael Devers, who made another Tuesday night, giving him all three of the team's paltry total.

You name the category, the facet of their game, and there's a good bet the Red Sox are currently doing it better than anyone else in baseball.

That includes preparation, too.

"Everything starts in the clubhouse,'' said Hanley Ramirez. "If it's not (Carlos) Febles, it's Goody (first base coach Tom Goodwin)...everybody's got something (to offer) about the game. I think our preparation is unbelievable. Our coaching staff, they're prepared, man. That's good. Every day, they try to make it easier for us, so we just go out there with good preparation and let it go on the field.''

Start with their game plan against Shohei Ohtani, the rookie sensation who had looked overpowering in his first two starts. The Sox wisely laid off his split-finger fastball, swinging at just one all night, and instead, feasted on his four-seam fastball, displaying a discipline that would seem to run counter to their more aggressive strategy at the plate.

"We had a good approach,'' said Betts. "He wasn't able to land that splitter for strikes and we did a good job laying off of it and backing him into a corner, and making him throw pitches that he probably didn't want to, in situations that he didn't want to.''

For all the hype that accompanied Ohtani's start against the Red Sox' top-ranked lineup, the matchup didn't last long. After 66 pitches and a blister on his hand, he was removed from the game after just two innings. But the Red Sox kept up the drumbeat, adding five more runs in the third and another in the fourth.

While the Sox lineup was piling up runs and churning through the Angels' bullpen (L.A. use five relievers), David Price was limiting the Angels to three singles and one run over five innings.

The one blemish was the four walks he issued, which he termed "weird,'' and for which he had no explanation. But mostly Price attacked the strike zone and took advantage of the generous support offered by his hitters.

Price marveled at the roll his club is currently enjoying.

"Honestly, I don't know what this team isn't going to do really well,'' he said. "We do everything extremely well. You're always going to be able to find something (wrong), but we can do it all and we can do it with different guys. That's kind of what makes this team so special -- guys can play everywhere, pitchers can pitch in a lot of different situations. Everybody's done their part.''

Indeed, it hasn't seemed to matter that the team began the season without 40 percent of its projected starting rotation, their starting second baseman or a key member of their bullpen.

The Sox have played with the consistency of a metronome, and their reward is a steady deposit of early-season wins which will yield interest later.

"We're just trying to win as many games as we can early,'' said Ramirez. "You don't know what's going to happen later. When you get an opportunity to keep winning games, you've got to take advantage. That's what we're doing. We believe in karma. We just out go out there and play hard and we don't give up. It doesn't matter who we're facing, or what team. Any team can beat you. But right now, we're taking advantage.''

No team is perfect, naturally. But in this early season snapshot, the Sox don't look to have a lot of faults.

"I'll find something,'' said Alex Cora with a twinkle in his eye, but a touch of pride, too. "I'll keep them hungry.''