All you need to know, in quickie form, about the Red Sox' win over the Orioles, complete with BSJ analysis and insight:
HEADLINES
Houck puts poor spring behind him: Red Sox starter Tanner Houck had an abysmal Grapefruit League season with nine homers allowed in 20.1 innings and a spring training ERA of 9.74. That might not have filled him -- or his team -- with a lot of confidence for his start of the regular season, but you wouldn't have known it by the way Houck pitched Sunday. Though he had a rocky fifth inning and surrendered what had been a 3-0 lead, Houck gave the Sox five innings, allowing just three runs, enough to become the first Sox starter to claim a victory. "I'm always confident,'' said Houck. "And it doesn't come from results. It comes from doing the same monotonous stuff each and every day... I filled up the zone. I felt really good with all of my pitches.''
Nine is the magic number so far: The Red Sox became just the third team since 1901 to score at least nine runs in each of their first three games of the season, joining the 1976 Cincinnati Reds and the 1978 Milwaukee Brewers. In the opener, the nine runs weren't enough for a win, but they were in the subsequent two games. The Sox had a balanced attack again Sunday, with 14 hits collected, which featured at least one hit from seven different members of the starting lineup. As Alex Cora noted, a few were hardly hard-hit -- the Sox were the beneficiaries of a couple of soft bloopers that fell into open spots in the outfield -- but they aren't about to complain about some good luck. And some of those soft hits allowed the team to keep the proverbial line moving and extend some innings.
Finally, a good start to the season: On Thursday, the Sox didn't get off to the kind of start they hoped for, dropping their third straight Opening Day contest. But with two wins that followed, the Sox could at least claim a series win. To put that into some perspective, the Red Sox haven't won the first series of the year since 2018, Cora's first year as the team's manager. The series win also stands in sharp contrast to two years ago when the Orioles, en route to a 100-loss season, came into Fenway for the opening series and swept the Sox.
TURNING POINT
Twice on Sunday, the Orioles made some noise and scored multiple runs, putting up three in the top of the fifth and later scoring twice in the visitor's half of the seventh. But critically, both times, the Red Sox responded with multiple runs of their own, answering the Orioles' surges with ones of their own.
TWO UP
Adam Duvall: Perhaps it wasn't as dramatic as his Saturday heroics in the ninth, but Duvall had another big day at the plate, collecting three more hits -- a single and two doubles -- giving him seven RBI in the last two games.
Masataka Yoshida: After being retired in each of his first two plate appearances, Yoshida added two hits and a walk in his next three, showing his elite on-base skills.
TWO DOWN
Connor Wong: Getting his first start of the season, Wong was hitless in four trips to the plate. On the plus side, the Orioles, for the first time in the series, didn't have a stolen base.
Richard Bleier: Making his Red Sox debut, Bleier had a shaky seventh in which he allowed two runs on three hits, though he also picked up two strikeouts in the inning of work.
QUOTE OF NOTE
"We're probably not going to average nine runs game for the whole season, but I do believe this is what we're capable of.'' -- Kiké Hernandez.
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
* The Red Sox have had 11 or more hits in each one of their first three games for the third time in franchise history. They also did so in 1902 and 1954.
* Adam Duvall became the first Red Sox player to collect six extra-base hits in his first three games with the club.
* Duvall is also the fourth player in club history to have eight or more RBI in his first three games of a season. Bobby Doerr, Ted Williams and Brock Holt also achieved the feat.
* Rafael Devers has multiple hits in each of the first three games.
* Triston Casas collected his first career pinch-hit with a single in the seventh while batting in place of Christian Arroyo.
* Reliever Chris Martin is unscored upon in each of his three appearances to date.
* Yoshida recorded the first stolen base by a Red Sox player this season by swiping second in the eighth inning.
UP NEXT
The Red Sox begin their interleague schedule early with the first of three vs. Pittsburgh. RHP Kutter Crawford faces RHP Joahn Oviedo at 7L10 p.m.