BOSTON — The Boston Red Sox have been firing on all cylinders to start the 2018 season.
The starting pitching has been superb, the hitting has been timely and the team’s resiliency has resulted in a few hard-fought, exciting wins.
But for new Red Sox manager Alex Cora, what he’s happiest about through Boston’s 8-1 start to the campaign is what he’s seen with the gloves.
“Defense,” Cora said prior to Tuesday’s game against the New York Yankees. “I know there’s numbers and errors and stuff that you take into consideration and errors are not as important as it was when we used to play. But when you make the routine play, you’re doing something good. They’ve been making routine plays every day. We haven’t made some of them, of course. We haven’t turned a few double plays and we have to do that. I think that helps our pitching staff. But overall, we’ve been a good defensive team. Like I said a few days ago, halfway through spring training I was very worried about our defense, and they’ve been great.”
Cora is right, they have been great. The Red Sox currently are the only team in Major League Baseball that has yet to make an error this season, which is no small feat considering the mixing and matching done to the lineup on a game-by-game basis. The Red Sox have been playing well-rounded baseball to start, which is manifested through their near-perfect record.
