So far Seattle has a 2-4 record against Houston despite taking an earlier series from the Astros.
At least the Mariners have a better record against the Astros than the Red Sox have against the Blue Jays.
It should be an interesting season ... thanks for asking.
FWIW last week Anthony Bender posted four saves in four scoreless outings:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=bendean01&t=p&year=2022
Bender has more saves this year than the entire Red Sox staff.
FanGraphs currently gives the Red Sox a 53.5 percent chance of advancing to the postseason while FiveThirtyEight has the Sox chances at 46 percent:
https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-mlb-predictions/
Was five years at $115 million too much to pay for 30-year-old lefthander Robbie Ray coming off a Cy Young season?
Over this first three starts Ray had posted only a negative 0.1 fWAR and 0.0 bWAR before posting his third quality start on Sunday. Ray's ERA of 3.91 would be about 2.55 but for a four-run second inning in a Chicago monsoon on April 13.
Ray has gone at least six innings in all four starts but has seen his strikeout rate drop precipitously from his career rate of 11.1 per nine innings.
The worth of Ray's contract may be determined by whether Ray helps the Seattle Mariners to the postseason rather than whether his production justifies his salaries in Years 4 and 5 of the contract.
FWIW entering today's game Red Sox starters had posted a negative 0.1 fWAR in 49.2 innings this year while Red Sox relievers had posted 0.9 fWAR in 48.1 innings:
https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=sta&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2022&month=0&season1=2022&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2022-01-01&enddate=2022-12-31
Under the traditional QS definition, the Red Sox are among 10 MLB teams with no quality starts this year:
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/stats/team/team/extended-pitching/mlb/regular/?sortcol=qs&sortdir=descending
The San Diego Padres lead the way with eight quality starts in 13 games.
The game has changed.