By TERRY LYONS
BOSTON – The Boston Red Sox will depart New York after tonight’s first ESPN Sunday Night Baseball game against the Yankees, then chill-out in Detroit for a three-game set against the Tigers Monday to Wednesday (two afternoon games) before heading home Thursday for the Friday, April 15, 2:10pm (ET) home opener against the Minnesota Twins at Fenway Park.
Minnesota’s SP Sonny Gray is scheduled to throw against Boston SP Nick Pivetta unless the weather forecast throws a change-up. The four-game set against the Twins concludes with the 11:10am (ET) start on Patriots’ Day, Monday, April 18th – the holiday in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts known best at the day of the famed Boston Marathon.
Reading the Boston Red Sox Tea party leaves this early in the season is nearly as impossible as forecasting the weather. After all, when the Red Sox were playing the New York Yankees on Saturday, Boston saw sunshine and spring-like settings turn to ominous skies, snow, hail, thunder and rain before returning to a beautiful spring evening.
That unpredictable weather pattern might equate to the Sox pitching roster, once again, as Nathan Eovoldi, Pivetta, Tanner Houck, Michael Wacha and Rich Hill could prove to be a formidable staff which can be super-sized if Sox star Chris Sale can return to form at some point mid-season. Currently, Sale is on the 60-day Injured List with rib injuries. He’ll begin throwing next week.
James Paxton, acquired by Boston for a single year deal for a lofty $10m, is recovering from Tommy John surgery last April when he was a member o0f the Seattle Mariners.
One-time Sox closer Matt Barnes is already banged-up as the season begins but could return soon. Until then, it’s bullpen by committee with newly extended four-year contract holder Garrett Whitlock carrying the load with Ryan Brasier and Hansel Robles. Matt Strohm andJake Diekman round out the relievers from the southpaw side. Josh Taylor, a 61 game reliever last season, has been out on the IL with a bad back but could return within weeks.
If you’re scoring at home, that pans out to create uncertainty every time Eovaldi, Pivetta, Hill, Wacha, Barnes and eventually Sale and Paxton take the pitching mound to start a game, whether it be at Fenway or on the road.
Of course, pitching is the key element for all teams to contend in the American League East as the Toronto Blue Jays, Yankees, and Tampa Bay Rays are all worthy to compete for playoff berths while the Baltimore Orioles are likely to hold up the rear in the division but are fast improving.
Lets take a look at the Vegas odds for the American League title as of Opening Day:
- Toronto Blue Jays | +400
- Chicago White Sox | +500
- Houston Astros | +500
- New York Yankees | +500
- Tampa Bay Rays | +850
- Boston Red Sox | +1000
- Los Angeles Angels | +1000
- Seattle Mariners | +1000
- Minnesota Twins | +1700
- Detroit Tigers | +2300
- Cleveland Guardians | +4200
- Texas Rangers | +4800
- Kansas City Royals | +5000
- Oakland Athletics | +6000
- Baltimore Orioles | +16000
In the National League, there’s rarely a bar room argument that the LA Dodgers, Atlanta Braves and San Diego Padres all have an edge and the New York Mets could contend if starters Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer can combine for 35-40 wins. Meanwhile, while last year’s surprise club, the San Francisco Giants, have slipped.
Here are the Vegas Opening Day odds for the National League title:
- Los Angeles Dodgers | +175
- New York Mets | +500
- Atlanta Braves | +550
- Milwaukee Brewers | +750
- San Diego Padres | +750
- Philadelphia Phillies | +1000
- San Francisco Giants | +1000
- St. Louis Cardinals | +1400
- Miami Marlins | +3400
- Chicago Cubs | +4800
- Cincinnati Reds | +6500
- Washington Nationals | +6500
- Colorado Rockies | +11500
- Arizona Diamondbacks | +18000
- Pittsburgh Pirates | +25000
HERE NOW, THE NOTES: As long as the odds are laid out so nicely, there’s no reason not to make early season predictions for Divisional Winners, Wild Cards, League Championship Series contenders and the winner of the 2022 World Series.
Here now, the picks:
American League:
Divisional Winners: Toronto Blue Jays*, Chicago White Sox, Houston Astros*
Wild Cards: New York Yankees, Tampa Bay Rays, LA Angels.
ALCS: Toronto vs Houston with the Astros advancing to the World Series.
National League:
Divisional Winners: Atlanta Braves*, Milwaukee Brewers, LA Dodgers*.
Wild Cards: San Diego Padres, New York Mets, SF Giants.
NLCS: LA Dodgers vs. Atlanta Braves with the Dodgers advancing.
World Series: LA Dodgers over Houston Astros, 4-games-to-2.
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THE MASTERS: There are a few sporting events which take on a “Carnegie Hall” level of prestige in the sports world.
They are:
- The Masters
- Wimbledon
- The Kentucky Derby
- The Ryder Cup
- The Boston Marathon
- The Breeders’ Cup
- Tour de France
- Monaco Gand Prix
This week’s Masters is living up to its rightful place in sports. The headline-grabbing storyline is the return of Tiger Woods to competitive PGA TOUR golf. While Woods has been both impressive and competitive, his rivals are atop the leaderboard heading into the final round.
The Leaderboard:
Scottie Scheffler – (-9)
Cameron Smith – (-6)
Sungjae Im – (-4)
Shane Lowry – (-4)
Charl Schwartzel – (-4)
Tiger Woods is T-41 at (+7)
Scheffler has won three times in his last five starts on Tour.
IT’s JUST A FANTASY: For this column, rarely do I delve into Fantasy Sports and share my fantasy team ups and downs, whether it be NFL Football or MLB Baseball. And, while we’ve been known to play every kind of fantasy sport imaginable, from Olympic Basketball and Ice Hockey to World Cup to NBA to NBA Playoffs to NFL Playoffs to PGA TOUR Golf to NBA Summer League to – well, you get the idea, the completion for NFL regular season, PGA Golf and the long run of MLB Baseball are the three I’ve settled for over the past five or six years.
The Baseball fantasy league is called the “Teddy Baseball League” to honor the great Ted Williams and its weekly winner is crowned the “Dean RosenTeam of the Week” in memory of one of the league’s former team owners who passed away all too soon. The Teddy is a hybrid of fantasy baseball with the first 17 players for each team picked in “auction” style of bidding, then the final 14 players are picked in snake-draft order to fill-out a 31 player roster for 11 teams.
The standings are rotisserie style, not head-to-head, so it is a long marathon of a season.
The franchise, worth billions – I am sure, is the Chathams, named after one of my favorite places on earth in Chatham, Massachusetts – on The Cape. We are often tagged as “The Cape Codders.” And, that’s alright with me. The Cape Cod Baseball League is a favorite for sure and there will be more on that this summer.
The Chathams have an active owner and a seasoned veteran of a General Manager and head of Analytics in Craig Glazer. The league competition is tough. No team misses a beat, nor a prospect, nor a mistake of a cut. Line-ups are set weekly, on Monday when there’s five minutes before the first pitch of the first game of the week. It’s great.
Our strategy – which has been no secret to our fellow league franchise owners – is to go heavy on offense, grab at least one stud or semi-stud Starting Pitcher, one formidable Reliever for saves and then do our best to fill-out the rest of the line-up. In taking this road to the Teddy Title, we need to thread the needle, acquire a couple up & coming stars who pan out and pray to the heavens our top offensive gems stay healthy.
That was not the case last year when Ronald Acuna Jr. was injured in mid-season and with his injury, so were the days of our Teddy triumph to be. We were also sunk when Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Cody Bellinger, a superstar level player, had his worst season EVVV-AHHH.
That was last year, this is this year. Here is the line-up and I’ll not the bidding numbers for a few of the top players. (A side-note, the most expensive player in the auction was our very own $42 bid for Juan Soto of the Washington Nationals. That came out of a $202 budget).
Here’s our club:
- Shohei Ohtani LAA, DH – $23 (a surprise that he went for under $30-$40).
- Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Tor, 1B – $35
- Juan Soto Wash, RF – $42
- Gerrit Cole NYY, SP – $35
- Rafael Devers Bos, 3B – $33
- Jacob deGrom NYM, SP – $6 (deep discount with 60+ day IL)
- Marcus Semien Tex, 2B – $17 (shocked he didn’t get more bidding)
That’s where the budget kicked-in and we were left to fill nine players at $1 and one player at $2.
That resulted in the rest of the roster consisting of:
- Edwin Diaz NYM, RP
- Taylor Rogers SD, RP
- Tyler Stephenson Cin, C (a target going into the draft)
- Austin Meadows Det, LF (shocked he was still available)
- Amed Rosario Cle, SS
- Ty France Sea, 1B
- Jeimer Candelario Det, 3B
- Eduardo Rodriguez Det, SP
- Lance Lynn ChW, SP (currently on IL)
- Josh Bell Wsh, 1B
The snake-draft portion of the night brought:
- Luis Severino, SP, NYY
- Andrew Benintendi, OF, KC
- Jordan Montgomery, SP, NYY
- Ian Happ, OF, CHC
- Randal Grichuk, OF, COL
- Marcus Stroman, SP, CHC
- Corey Kluber, SP, TB
- Matt Brash, SP, SEA
- David Bednar, RP, PIT
- Reid Detmers, SP, LAA
- Nick Senzel, OF, CIN
- Seth Beer, 1B, ARI
- Josh Rojas, 2B, ARI
- Kendall Graveman, RP, CWS
A rare, pre-opening day trade sent Senzel, Meadows and Bednar outbound while we filled a weak middle infield position with Dansby Swanson, along with outfielder Anthony Santander of Baltimore and 1B Eric Hosmer.
That’s the club – for now – as transactions have and will continue each and every week of the season. Next update?
How about the 4th of July and then September 1 and October 1?
K at the O