Red Sox 3 Orioles 1

The Red Sox are off to a 5-2 start and are looking better than I think anybody would have guessed in their first seven games. The pitching has vastly improved and the hitting hasn't dropped off as much as I would have guessed after losing Adrian Gonzalez. Everything is clicking right now and the excitement and optimism of the fan base is building. Yesterday afternoon the Red Sox beat the Orioles on opening day. The winning runs came on a 3 run home run in the 7th and Buchholz pitched a gem and the bullpen finished the job.

Many people were critical of the Red Sox decision to bench Jackie Bradley Jr. for opening day, but it couldn't have worked out better for the Red Sox. Daniel Nava was 2 for 2 and drew a walk in his 3 at bats. One of those hits was the 3-run home run that won the game for the Red Sox. The Captain has been critical of this team for being guided by their PR department instead of their baseball people. I think that benching such a popular player in the home opener might indicate that this is not the case anymore. Pedroia had a solid night going 1 for 2 with a walk. Napoli had a double and Victorino had a single. Everybody else on the team failed to get on base. It was nice that in a game where they didn't get many opportunities to score, when there were two runners on Nava managed to get the big hit to bring them in. It was clutch.
BATTING GRADE: C

Buchholz and Lester look dramatically improved from their performances last season. Buchholz's stat line is pretty impressive: 7 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 4 BB, 8 K, 113 Pitches. He got into a little trouble in the third by giving up back to back singles with two outs, but he got the third out to get out of the jam. I wonder how much of the turnaround by Buchholz is because of the return of his old pitching coach John Farrell.
STARTING PITCHING GRADE: A

Despite not giving up any runs, Buchholz's pitch count was climbing at 113 through 7, so Andrew Bailey came in to protect a 3-run lead in the 8th. Bailey didn't disappoint, collecting two strikeouts and a fly out on 14 pitches to pick up his 3rd hold in 3 appearances. In Bailey's 2.1 IP over 3 appearances he's given up only one hit and one walk and no runs and looks like the player we thought we were getting from the A's when we gave them Josh Reddick. Hanrahan came on in the 9th to close out the game. This was Hanrahan's shakiest appearance this season allowing the game's only run on a leadoff home run and a 2 out double to bring the tying run to the plate. Fortunately, Hanrahan got Ryan Flaherty to foul out to wrap up the game and collected his third save.
BULLPEN GRADE: C+