The Red Sox made their return to our television sets in their first exhibition game against the Blue Jays at Fenway Park.
Unfortunately, Boston dropped the contest to Toronto 8-6 after Ryan Brasier surrendered three earned runs in the ninth. But fans were treated to home runs from Mitch Moreland and J.D. Martinez.
Martinez hit from the No. 2 spot Tuesday, something different than his usual three spot fans were used to seeing him in last season.
But Ron Roenicke spoke with the designated hitter about moving up in the lineup. And elaborated on that decision after the game.
“We’ve thought about it. We may do it in the future,” the manager said on NESN’s “Red Sox Extra Innings Live.” “I wanted to see what he thought about it. I guess they tried it a little bit when he was in Detroit and he didn’t like it a whole lot. So he said, ‘fine, let’s do it, let’s see what it looks like.’ … And the reason being because we have (Andrew) Benintendi followed with (Rafael) Devers and we know that gives the opponent an opportunity to bring in any left-hander. And this breaks it up and makes it tough now. If you want to bring in the lefty to face Benny you gotta get through J.D. before you get to Devers. It makes sense if everybody is comfortable with it because I know comfort has a lot to do with how these guys hit and changes their confidence. So it’s a good look … it’s hard to pitch to.”
Seems simple enough.
Martinez finished 1-for-3 on the night with two runs and as many RBIs.
