Red Sox 6, Padres 1: Far From Home

Welcome to the West Coast tour, night owls. That’s right, for the next week or so, we’ll be playing late-night baseball. I hope your employers are ready for some unproductive mornings and understand that you had to be up to watch the Red Sox play regular-season baseball on the West Coast.

In Spiderman: Far From Home, the villain is a man using technology that was developed by a more successful man. That’s right, it’s past midnight, and I’m comparing Xander Bogaerts to the E.D.I.T.H. glasses and drone technology in a Marvel movie. While the rest of the world may be rooting for Mysterio (Read: The Padres), the good guys were Spiderman and the Avengers all along (Read: the Red Sox). It’s always nice to win one against someone who fled for greener pastures, and that’s exactly what the Red Sox did tonight.

If I had to stick with the Spiderman theme, I’d equate James Paxton to Ned. He was steady throughout, a pleasant surprise. There were a few speed bumps along the way, and he needs to adjust to the pressures of being Spiderman’s (Read: the Red Sox) right-hand man, but who can expect someone to become a superhero right away?

Three Studs

Rafael Devers (2-4, 2 HR, 4 RBI, 1 K)

Two home runs will always put you in this category. Great to see Raffy with a few big hits after a bit of a slump. 12 home runs is also good for second in the league behind only Adolis Garica; it’s not a stretch to think he could stay in that race until the end of the season.

James Paxton (6 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 5 K)

It’s still too early to say who Paxton is at this point, but I think he’ll only get better from here. He worked around trouble where he had to and limited damage to just the one home run. He still needs to find the feel for his curveball and changeup, but those should come with time.

Josh Winckowski (3 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 1 BB)

Winckowski continues to be a centerpiece in the Red Sox bullpen. Interestingly to note, Cora had been using Winckowski in shorter outings but gave him a full three tonight, likely due to Kutter Crawford’s return to the staff. Either way, Winckowski remains in the circle of trust for the Sox bullpen.

Three Duds

Pablo Reyes (0-4)

There isn’t much to say about Reyes, who did his job at second base. He’s here to play solid defense and won’t have five RBIs every night.

Triston Casas (0-3, 1 K)

Casas pinch hit for Justin Turner, who we hope is okay. He hit the balls on the screws a few times with nothing to show for it.

Masataka Yoshida (0-4)

Yoshida didn’t do any damage tonight from the DH spot, but it really wasn’t needed with the top of the lineup scoring doing the damage. Hard to be too upset about any of the duds tonight.