FORT MYERS, Fla. -- It seems rather obvious to suggest that every team hopes to get off to good starts to its season.
What's the alternative? Hoping to begin poorly?
But for some teams, the need is more pressing. The 2023 Red Sox come under this heading.
The Sox are coming off a last-place finish -- their second in the last three seasons and fifth in the last 11 -- and posted a losing record last year. The fan base is angry -- both at the team's recent on-field performance, along with the free agent defection of Xander Bogaerts, the second homegrown star in the last four years to leave town over money.
Worse, both the Celtics and Bruins are enjoying superb seasons and appear to be locks for deep playoff runs. If the Red Sox start slowly, it's not hard to envision them becoming somewhat irrelevant in the market as fans pay attention to the local NBA and NHL entries.
Recent history, it's worth noting, isn't in their favor. After the Sox streaked to an 18-2 start in 2018, a season that culminated in a World Series championship, they have habitually been poor out of the gate. (That goes well beyond Alex Cora's 0-4 mark in season openers since joining the Sox.
* In 2019, the team had a calamitous start to the season, going 3-8 on a West Coast road swing. It took until May 10 for the Red Sox to first peak their heads over the .500 mark (20-19). They never strayed far from the break-even mark and finished out of the postseason at 84-78, good for only third place
* In 2020, under interim manager Ron Roenicke, the Sox sputtered out of the box, falling to 1-4. By the fourth week of the season, the team had sufficiently buried itself at 6-16, en route to another last-place finish.
* In 2021, with Cora back in the dugout, a sweep at the hands of the then-lowly Baltimore Orioles had everyone fearing the worst. But a nine-game winning streak soon followed and the Sox were on their way to a spot in the postseason and a trip to the ALCS.
* In 2022, a mediocre April proved to be a sneak preview of what was to come. After going 6-5 in their first 11, the Sox didn't have a winning record until June 8. The rest of the year was spent hovering around .500 before a September nosedive saw them close out with a 78-84 record.
For a variety of reasons, the Red Sox hope that history doesn't repeat itself.
"If you look at this division throughout the years,'' said Cora, "it seems like somebody (always) gets a great start. If you separate yourself from that, then you have to work hard to get back (into contention). It happened to us in 2019. We had to work very hard to get back (into the race). Last year, we worked hard, then we got hurt. A great start is always a great start. A great start isn't (necessarily) 18-2. If you play good baseball and you win series, you're going to be fine. That's what we're trying to do.
"We haven't done that the last few years, early in the season. We lost our first series vs. Baltimore (in 2021) and New York (in 2022). Close games, but you have to win the series. Let's try to do that. Instead of talking about the whole (first) month, let's talk about weeks, let's talk about series. That's the way we take it. If we do that, we're going to be fine.''
The schedule-makers may have made the task somewhat easier for the Sox in the first few weeks.
Of the first three opponents on the Red Sox' schedule -- Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Detroit -- none qualified for the postseason last year, and two finished with losing records.
After that, the quality of competition gets considerably more difficult, with series against Tampa Bay, the Los Angeles Angels, and Minnesota Twins. After series with Milwaukee and Baltimore (again), the Sox face a brutal stretch in which they face off against seven straight playoff teams from a year ago: Cleveland, Toronto, Philadelphia, Atlanta, St. Louis, Seattle and San Diego.
Cora is a generally optimistic sort, and concedes he's felt good about his team in each of his four seasons with the Sox. This year is no different in that regard.
"I'm very excited about the lineup,'' he said, repeating a belief he has often uttered of late. "I like what I see. I like where we're at offensively and what we can do. It's a different dynamic, 100 percent. But in terms of moving the line and quality at-bats, it's going to be very interesting to, say the least. I like that, I like where we are defensively.
"Let's see what happens. I'm not talking about (October). We're talking about March and April and all of that. If we play well, if we do that, we have a shot.''
When it was suggested to Cora that it's even more important to start well in order to convince a disbelieving fan base of the team's worthiness, he pushed back some.
"I think the fans are going to show up regardless, early on,'' said Cora. "Then they'll decide if they keep following the team or not. Last year, it was the toughest season I've had here and I still remember playing Kansas City (in mid-September) and there were 35,000 there in the eighth inning with the bases loaded and they were standing up. People still like the Red Sox and they have passion for them. They had good and bad seasons, just like us.
"Looking around, when we playing on (the east coast of Florida), they still believe in this team. It's up to us to play the season and see where it takes us...From my end -- and this is not about being positive; it's being realistic -- we have a good baseball team.''
Still, it would be a good idea to demonstrate that right away.