Plan B Forum

By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston

BOSTON (CBS) — There’s this odd thought that tends to permeate the baseball world, and it pushes a belief that games late in the season are more important than games at the beginning of the season. Sure, it helps for a team to know where it stands and what’s at stake when they take the field, and games in September in the midst of a pennant race do take on a different feel than those in early April. Or March.

But the fact remains that the bean counters who monitor the league standings count those victories in April equally with the wins in September. One win is one win, and each contributes to a team’s ultimate playoff position.

And in the effort to pick up some of those early-season victories, the Boston Red Sox and rookie manager Alex Cora could not have asked for a better road.

The schedule makers can’t and don’t account for quality of opponent when drawing up a team’s schedule, but in the case of the Red Sox, they basically rolled out a red carpet to start the 2018 season.

Here’s a look at the Red Sox’ opponents for the month of April. The number of games in each series is in parentheses.

@ Tampa Bay Rays (4)
@ Miami Marlins (2)
Tampa Bay Rays (3)
New York Yankees (3)
Baltimore Orioles (4)
@ Los Angeles Angels (3)
@ Oakland A’s (3)
@ Toronto Blue Jays (3)
Tampa Bay Rays (3)
Kansas City Royals (3)

* * *

Anyway, the sum result of that exercise is that in the Red Sox’ first 31 games, they will play 10 games against the 20th-best team in baseball. They’ll get a pair of games against the very worst team in baseball, three games against the sixth-worst team in MLB, and seven more games against two teams that rank in the bottom third of the league. That’s (counting fingers … ) 22 games against very bad competition right out of the chute.

This all comes with the usual caveats. Nothing is ever guaranteed. You can’t predict baseball. Bad teams beat good teams every day. Yada yada yada. You know all that. But the bottom line is this: It’s a pretty soft landing for the Red Sox in April.

If the Red Sox can handle their business against the bad teams — call it a .700 winning percentage, which is aggressive but doable — and play .500 against the Yankees and Angels, they can emerge from their first 31 games with something like a 20-11 record. There will be a long way to go after that, but for a team that could really use a fast start, the road has been paved.

The World Cup, starting June 14!

BoSoxGal wrote:Got a smart phone? Download the MLB app; for $19.95 you can listen to all the games for the whole season, no blackouts. They also have video clips of major plays. I’ve had it every season for the past 5 years and love it!

BoSoxGal wrote:I’d really like to crow about our early season record, but I’m too superstitious to comment.