FanPost

We can throw away the first 10 Red Sox games

For me, the Red Sox season starts with tomorrow's game. I'm considering the first ten games to have been thrown away in the interest of surviving the long haul, and playing well come next September and October.

There are a lot of factors at play that made these first 10 games tough. Any one, by itself, would have contributed to a poor showing by the Red Sox. So might as well overlap them all, and do all the losing at once.

What are those factors?

For starters, the hangover from all the extra games - playoff games - last October. The Astros and The Yankees seem to be suffering it, too.

Because of that, Manaager Alex Cora gave his starting pitchers extra rest in spring training this year, meaning they were still essentially in spring training when the season started. The Red Sox first two opponents? The very two teams that finished spring training 8 days before everyone else - the Mariners and the A's. The combination was bad for the Red Sox starters, and it showed.

The second time through the rotation was better for Sale, at least. And not bad for Eovaldi. But the others are still figuring things out. Price may do well today, but this second trip through the rotation is still a losing one.

Yesterday the Red Sox finally played an opponent that didn't get a head start on the season, in the Arizona Diamondbacks. But playing at the Diamondbacks home opener, the odds weren't good.

Add to that that they're near the end of a pretty brutal west coast swing - 11 games in 11 days without a break to start the season, at a time of year when breaks are usually plentiful - and their lack of sharpness becomes understandable.

I'm considering today's game part of the lost ones, even though it's neither a home opener nor against a team that has a head start. Because it's still the second turn through the rotation, and we're still in the midst of the brutal road trip.

Tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow they won't be in the midst of the road trip, they'll be at the end of it. They'll be wanting something to be happy about for their long flight home. And they'll have Sale on the mound. I could batch tomorrow in among the lost games, because it's part of the road trip, and declare the season started with the Red Sox home opener. But I think tomorrow is the more appropriate starting point.

If the Sox have a losing record over the next 5 games, or the next 5 after that, then I'm wrong. I'll be watching closely. If they have a winning record over those games, that bodes well for the rest of the season, because it means we can dismiss those first 10 games as ill-fated.