Alright, let’s talk a little baseball.
With Boston’s “full throttle” offseason nearly fully behind us, it’s finally time for baseball games to be played again. The Red Sox began their Grapefruit League slate on Saturday against AL East rival Baltimore at JetBlue Park in Fort Myers.
As was the case for much of their successful 2023 campaign, the Orioles got the better of the Sox. As was also the case for most of last year, the Sox couldn’t help but blow a winnable game.
Boston fell 4-3 in its official spring training opener after rallying for the second time to take a one-run lead in the eighth inning, only to have Boston-born 25-year-old right-hander Nathan Tellier blow it. Teller gave up a leadoff single, followed by a wild pitch to move the runner to second, and then came the pièce de résistance — a game-winning two-run home run by Baltimore’s Colton Cowser.
Of course, this game (and the entire spring schedule) means nothing in the big picture, but wouldn’t it have been nice if the Sox gave us a little false hope right off the bat? Nevertheless, we got to see a few regulars make their spring debuts — plus one newcomer continue to raise some eyebrows.
Garrett Whitlock got the start and allowed a solo home run to Adley Rutschman in the game’s second at-bat. He bounced back by forcing two pop-outs and pitched a scoreless second that he capped with back-to-back strikeouts to end his day.
Next came Cooper Criswell’s Sox debut. The 27-year-old righty gave up a pair of hits and a game-tying sacrifice fly in the fourth after Boston had plated a pair in the third to take a brief lead (more on that shortly).
The game remained tied until speedster David Hamilton’s RBI single put Boston up 3-2. The rest, as they say, is history…
(A few other notables from this game: Bobby Dalbec, who at this point is a certified Four-A player, went 2 for 2 with an RBI single. Dalbec is no longer in the running for everyday playing time in Boston, but I maintain he provides nice organizational depth and a little bit of positional versatility. Also, newly acquired reliever Isaiah Campbell — who Alex Cora said he thinks could help fill the John Schreiber void — made his Sox debut, working himself out of a one-out jam with runners on first and second by coaxing a pop up followed by an inning-ending strikeout. Ceddanne Rafaela also went 0 for 3 with a strikeout out of the leadoff spot…)
Contreras impresses in spring debuts
Now, back to that aforementioned offense…
One of Boston’s two third-inning runs came on a solo home run by Mark Contreras. It was the second homer in as many days by the 29-year-old outfielder who joined the Sox in Fort Myers as a non-roster invitee.
Contreras is a former ninth-round draft pick in 2017 who had a cup of coffee at the major league level with the Twins in 2022, batting .121 with three homers and six RBIs in 28 games. He didn’t play in the majors last season and was released by Minnesota last August.
Could Contreras fill a need for the Sox as a power-hitting outfielder? It’s an interesting thought — especially on a day when potential Opening Day right fielder Wilyer Abreu went 0 for 3 with a pair of whiffs in his spring debut.
I wouldn’t bet on a Contreras career renaissance in Boston, but if he keeps slugging bombs all spring, maybe he will force Craig Breslow to give him a shot…
Back to school
In Friday’s unofficial spring opener, the Sox beat up on a bunch of college kids in a 7-2 win. A bad (yet entirely expected) omen for what’s to come this season might be the fact that they actually fell behind Northeastern in the early going.
23-year-old Sox lefty Helcris Olivarez opened the game by allowing a one-out walk and a steal of second before coughing up an RBI double. Olivarez proceeded to throw an errant pickoff attempt to first, so… I doubt we’re going to be seeing much of him at Fenway this year.
Anyway, the Sox eventually tied it up on catcher Nathan Hickey’s RBI double in the second. Then came the big blow of the game — a three-run bomb by center fielder Contreras that plated shortstop Hamilton and second baseman Nick Yorke, who went 1 for 2 with his third-inning single to right and a run scored.
(Speaking of notable Sox infield prospects, third baseman Blaze Jordan also made an appearance, going 0 for 1 and committing a costly throwing error to allow a run in the top of the fifth.)
Show me the Monty
At least one sports betting outlet has the Red Sox as the odds-on favorites to sign the elusive white whale, a.k.a free agent left-hander Jordan Montgomery. Boston is an 1/1 favorite to land Montgomery, according to sister sites BetOnline.ag and SportsBetting.ag.
So that settles it, right? Jordan Montgomery is going to be a Red Sox. Vegas certainly has a knack for these informed predictions, but rest assured, there’s always a reason to dampen expectations with these Red Sox…
As I surmised in my last column, the Sox are apparently in no rush to sign Montgomery — even with spring training games underway and the regular season a little over one month away. WEEI reports that while the team is indeed prioritizing Montgomery among remaining free agents, the Sox are “still waiting for price to come down.”
If the Sox are indeed “prioritizing” Montgomery, they have a funny way of showing it. The problem with that whole “waiting for the price to come down” concept instead of setting the market yourself is the risk that the player might, you know… sign somewhere else.
Sigh. Cheap until the very end…
Verdugo fires back at Pap
New Yankees outfielder Alex Verdugo took the high road in response to his relationship with ex-manager Cora, but he zipped a fastball up and in when responding to rising Sox broadcasting star Jonathan Papelbon’s pointed critiques.
Verdugo insisted he doesn’t have “any hard feelings” toward Cora after being benched several times last season for a lack of hustle. But on Papelbon, who called Verdugo the b-word in a post on X/Twitter and added "you aired yourself out by being late, lazy and unproductive. If I played for Cora I’m drilling this (b-word), just saying," Verdugo was a tad more flippant…
“Honestly, I don’t care about anything he says," he told the Bergen Record. “I don’t know him personally. I’ve never even seen him around the clubhouse in the four years that I was with the Red Sox. … I don’t feel like he has any idea what was going on the team, in house. He’s always been a guy that’s very emotional and kind of crazy in a way. He doesn’t really care. He kind of just says what he wants, with no filter to him.’’
Verdugo concluded, “but honestly, he has a right to his opinion, and if that’s how he feels, that’s how he feels. Hopefully, he feels better, he got his little reaction out, whatever. I don’t care.’’
I don’t recall seeing Papelbon in the clubhouse or not over the past few seasons, but he’s definitely been in close proximity — including that time he might have been a tad but inebriated in celebration and hugged me outside the clubhouse entrance (I, like Verdugo, do not know Pap personally… but hey, I’m open to a budding friendship!).
Regardless, for a guy Verdugo doesn’t claim to know (he also says he didn’t see the social media post in question and was only alerted by friends and family), he sure has a pretty in-depth character assessment of Pap.
It’s an interesting juxtaposition of old school and new school baseball philosophy here. Papelbon is obviously an old-school flamethrower while Verdugo takes a more modern-day athlete approach with some veiled shots.
As long as Papelbon doesn’t un-retire and sign with an AL East rival, though, Verdugo shouldn’t have to worry…
Gethin Coolbaugh is a columnist for Boston Sports Journal. Follow him @GethinCoolbaugh on X/Twitter.