@IanCundall
Professional outing from Eduardo Rodriguez today. Final line: 4 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K. FB was 91-93 and CH and SL both were good after he settled in. That velocity is a bit down from 2019, but by the time the regular season comes around I suspect it will tick back up to normal
@SoxNotes
Marwin Gonzalez has homered from both sides of the plate today. No Red Sox player has done that in the regular season since Victor Martinez on 5/17/10 at Yankee Stadium.
https://community.fangraphs.com/a-lineup-construction-experiment/
When the performance of batters is static, the order in which they bat is not that important. In particular, while there was a slight difference when trying to form a bad lineup, the two reasonable lineups yielded the same results in a large sample. Thus, when trying to optimize a lineup, the emphasis should be placed on gaining advantages with particular batter-versus-pitcher matchups — the goal of which would be to maximize the performance of each player rather than worry about who goes to the plate the most often.
April used to have extra days off to cover for rain delays. Not a fan of front loading off days. The O's series should be game 1, game 2, game 3, off day. If there's rain, just use that 4th day as a make up. I realize that they put the off day on 4/2 as a make good to opening day fans if their game gets rained out.
@jcmccaffrey
Cora says he'll use Marwin Gonzalez in left if Franchy Cordero isn't ready for the start of the year. He says Alex Verdugo and Hunter Renfroe will mostly be used in center and left.
Nobody voted for this option in the poll.
@alexspeier
Red Sox pitchers have regularly shown mid- to upper-90s velo in outings. ‘It’s a lot better than (2019), obviously,’ Says Cora, referencing the slow post-WS buildup in which Sox starters weren’t physically built up for the start of the season.
Oof. Cora throwing shade at the 2019 manager.