Red Sox vs. Orioles lineup: Gimme five!

With four days (including today) left in February, the Red Sox still haven’t lost a game. As I wrote yesterday, it means nothing, and I still want it to continue very much.

Today the Sox will face the Baltimore Orioles, led by Buck Showalter, at 1:05 p.m. at jetBlue Park. Showalter is a perpetual source of Boston trollery and all-around respected baseball guy, but for Sox-centric faults, he knows his stuff; per a recent edition of Buster Olney’s Baseball Tonight podcast, Buck called Mookie Betts the “best right fielder he’s ever seen,” which is... not something I’d expect him to say, given the ostensible antagonism between the AL East rivals. It’s another reminder that Showalter’s constant acts of gamesmanship are, as the name suggests, all in the game. The next time he pops off in our direction, it’s something worth remembering before killing him Twitter (but by all means, kill him on Twitter too).

Thankfully, there probably won’t be much beef today. Even the perpetual antagonism between the Sox and O’s isn’t much of a force in February. Brian Johnson gets the start for us, while Gabriel Ynoa goes for the orange-and-black. A quick reminder that this is your gamethread; now here is the extremely February lineup that will try to keep things undefeated:

1. Mookie Betts, RF
2. Xander Bogaerts, SS
3. Hanley Ramirez, 1B
4. Blake Swihart, C
5. Jeremy Barfield, DH
6. Tzu-Wei Lin, CF
7. Esteban Quiroz, 2B
8. Ivan De Jesus, 3B
9. Aneury Taverez, LF

SP: Brian Johnson, LHP, but here’s the full list of who’s gonna pitch for the next few days: