The hours are winding down and the Boston Red Sox’s 2019 season is about to begin with an 11-game West Coast road trip beginning Thursday against the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park.
Boston begin the defense of its World Series title with much of the 2018 championship team is returning. Manager Alex Cora already has his starting rotation lined up for the first five games, and revealed his batting lineup Wednesday evening.
With very few changes to the starting nine, it’s no surprise the squad ranked atop MLB.com’s top-10 lineups heading into the 2019 campaign.
Here’s the explanation:
“The 2018 Red Sox compelled the question: Which guy with north of 80 extra-base hits and one of the top three OPS and weighted runs created marks in MLB (Mookie Betts or J.D. Martinez) was your favorite?
“When you’ve got that, you’ve got something good. But of course, it doesn’t end there for the Sox. They have one of the most productive shortstops in the game in Xander Bogaerts, they have a 24-year-old Andrew Benintendi coming off an offensive breakout, they have a 22-year-old Rafael Devers possibly on the verge of a breakout, they have Jackie Bradley Jr. coming off a scorching second half after some swing adjustments, they have all the primary pieces of a lineup that generated one of the highest contact rates in the game (79.3 percent), they have bench depth and versatility.”
Hey, you won’t see any argument from us.
If the lineup improves on its monster 2018, then opponents certainly will need to find a way to fool the hitters.
