The Boston Red Sox Finish April With A Winning Record

By: Steve Atkinson

The Boston Red Sox aren’t a bad baseball team. They started out sloppy on opening weekend, then got it together and won nine straight. The main reason is Alex Cora. He doesn’t really care about the analytics of the game he cares about winning games. Players listen to him and he gets them engaged. The Sox are a much more fun team than they were in 2020, and that’s all in part of Alex Cora.

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There are some more positives to take from the Red Sox. Alex Verdugo has been great so far and you can tell he just wants to get the ball in play. He doesn’t care about swinging for the fences. He’s also made some great plays in the outfield as well. He’s had 26 hits so far, with three homers, and a batting average of  .325. The other positive to take out of this team is Tanner Houck who should be in the starting rotation. In 10 innings pitched so far he has 12 strikeouts with a 4.35 ERA. However, he is the future of this team.

Red Sox Are A legit Baseball Team

Eduardo Rodriguez has come back stronger thanks to Cora. He has pitched well and is a proven ace of this team. He is currently 4-0 with a 3.52 ERA. Cora spoke the other day to the media about Rodriguez’s outing against the Mariners.

“I mean, he was in the second half of the season in ’19, right? When everybody went down,” Cora said He just kept giving us innings and going deep into ball games. I remember, it seemed like whenever he pitched, we would come from a bullpen game, so we had not too many arms in the bullpen and he was at 115 pitches, just grinding it out. And he did an amazing job, he grew up. And, you know, (it’s) too bad obviously with the virus and everything that happened last year he wasn’t able to perform, but coming into the season, I knew that he was in a good spot.”

Rodriguez said after the win

“I know they’re gonna score runs,” Rodriguez said. “I mean (it) from the bottom of my heart, that they’re going to score runs. Every time we play, we’ve got to think like that all the time, and I’m enjoying it every time I go out there and I see they put runs up there on the board all the time.”

Now, as the for the negatives of this team and there really is only one. Garrett Richards the Adrian Gonzalez of this baseball team. He was brought here from the Padres cause he had a good “spin rate.” He has a good one alright and gets homered on constantly. His attitude after the games isn’t great either thinking it’s everyone else but him. This is what he said the other day after he lost.

“I mean I didn’t even pack a jacket for a season until this year, so I’m going on my ninth, almost 10th year. So, yeah, you know it’s something different, but it’s nothing that can be dealt with. I just got to make adjustments, you know. I’m not making excuses I just got to, I got to figure out a way to get it done.”

This is a David Price, John Lackey, Carl Crawford type of player. A one year $10 million pitcher who thinks his you know what doesn’t stink. This guy needs to cool it before he gets traded probably at the deadline. I’d rather have Tanner Houck in the rotation than this dude who clearly doesn’t want to be in Boston, and just came for the dollar sign. The Red Sox are 1-3 when Richards pitches and 11-4 when everyone else pitches. Seems clear to me what the problem is.

As we head into May, hopefully the Red Sox keep going with good baseball. Finally, they look like a team who is enjoyable to watch and will be in it in September. The hope is to make a playoff push for baseball in October.