The Brewers, one of the best teams in baseball the last few years, arrive at Fenway Park on Monday for a three-game series. The Sox then leave on a six-game road trip to St. Louis and Minnesota.
Another week of this and it’s not a slow start. It’ll be who they are until proven otherwise.
“It’s not the way we wanted to start, of course,” said Wilyer Abreu, one of the few players whose head was not buried in his phone after the game. “But I still think we have a really good team that will win a lot of games. I trust my guys.”
The Padres’ Jackson Merrill celebrates his go-ahead home run in the eighth inning.Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
So does manager Alex Cora. But it’s clear he’s getting frustrated with the slow start.
“The record is the record,” he said. “We’ve just got to show up [Monday]. We have another tough team coming in, one of the best teams in baseball. We’ve got to play better.”
I asked if it was time to change the look of the lineup. No. 2 hitter Trevor Story snapped an 0-for-16 streak with an infield single in the seventh inning, but he has a .333 OPS through nine games and hasn’t drawn a walk.
Cleanup hitter Willson Contreras, who declined comment after going 0 for 4 with two strikeouts, has two RBIs and one extra-base hit.
“We’ll make adjustments,” Cora said. “I think there were some signs [Sunday] that were positive, others that just stayed the same. You have to stay the course and that’s how it works. You cannot overreact.”
Does he still like Story batting second?
“I still like Trevor Story as a player,” Cora responded.
Abreu did his part Sunday, going 3 for 4 with a double, a triple, and his seventh RBI. His triple into the right-field corner in the third inning gave the Sox a 3-0 lead.
Remember when the Sox lost Alex Bregman to the Cubs then crowed about making a quick pivot to signing Ranger Suarez for five years and $130 million and building a team around a dominant rotation? That pivot has led to a dead end so far.
Suarez was hit hard again, giving up four runs in four innings. That forced the Sox to get five innings from a worn-down bullpen, and the math didn’t add up as four relievers allowed four more runs.
Manny Machado (left) celebrates his three-run home run with Fernando Tatis in the fifth inning.Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
Three of those runs came on a two-out home run by Manny Machado in the fifth inning off Greg Weissert. A Padres fan seated in the Monster Seats caught the ball.
Since joining the Red Sox, Suarez has started seven games, counting spring training, the World Baseball Classic, and the regular season. He has allowed 25 earned runs on 33 hits over 22 innings. Either something is going on physically, which everybody denies, or the lefthander just wasn’t ready for his first season in Boston.
With the Sox down, 6-4, Masataka Yoshida doubled in two runs in the seventh inning. He was 3 for 4 with two doubles and three RBIs.
Tyler Uberstine, in his major league debut, had pitched two scoreless innings to that point. With Garrett Whitlock on his final day of paternity leave and Justin Slaten not available after pitching two days in a row, Cora stayed with Uberstine for the eighth inning and Jackson Merrill led off with a home run to left field.
“Where we were today, it was him,” Cora said.
The alternative was Zack Kelly, who gave up a run in the ninth.
Yoshida is now in his fourth season with the Sox, which makes him one of the veterans. What does he see with this team?
“We have some young guys on this team who are off to a slow start right now,” he said via a translator. “That’s leading them to rushing through some at-bats. I think it’s a matter of time until they get hot.
“It’s part of the game. You never know what will happen when you open the box to the season.”
Boston Red Sox Opening Day at Fenway Park
The Red Sox returned to Boston for the first game of the season at Fenway Park. Amid red, white, and green, fans flocked to celebrate the return of baseball.
Peter Abraham can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Bluesky at peteabeglobe.bsky.social.
