Opening Day is Now One Week Away

The Red Sox season opener is one week away, on April 1st at 12:05 PM at Yankees Stadium. It’s not official, but Lester is thought to be the Opening Day starter and will most likely face CC Sabathia.

It’ll be an interesting game without long-time superstars from both teams, as David Ortiz, Alex Rodriguez, Curtis Granderson, Mark Texeria, and Derek Jeter (likely) will start the season on the disabled list. Kevin Youkilis is now the starting third baseman for the Yankees and leads the team in home runs this Spring Training with five. The Yankees also traded for Vernon Wells yesterday, which means they will be paying (part) of one of the worst contacts in MLB history.

The Red Sox’s roster is beginning to take shape. Most likely, it’ll be the following:

Starting Pitchers
LHP Jon Lester
RHP Clay Buchholz
RHP Ryan Dempster
LHP Felix Dubront
RHP John Lackey

Bullpen
RHP Alfredo Aceves
RHP Andrew Bailey
RHP Joel Hanrahan (closer)
LHP Andrew Miller
RHP Clayton Mortensen
RHP Junichi Tazawa
RHP Koji Uehara

Lineup
CF Jacoby Ellsbury (LH)
DH/LF Daniel Nava (SH)
2B Dustin Pedroia (RH)
1B Mike Napoli (RH)
3B Will Middlebrooks (RH)
C Jarrod Saltalamacchia (SH)
LF/DH Jonny Gomes (RH)
RF Shane Victorino (SH)
SS Jose Iglesias (RH)

Bench
C David Ross (RH)
INF Pedro Ciriaco (RH)
1B/LF Mike Carp (LH)
OF Ryan Sweeney (LH) or Jackie Bradley Junior (LH)

Disabled List
DH David Ortiz (Right foot)
LHP Craig Breslow (shoulder)
LHP Franklin Morales (back)
SS Stephen Drew (concussion)
OF Ryan Kalish (shoulder)

I honestly don’t know what the Red Sox organization will do with Jackie Bradley Junior to start the season. He is clearly the winner of Spring Training hitting .423 with 2 home runs (1 of Cliff Lee yesterday), 2 doubles, 9 RBIs, and walking and striking out 8 times a piece (a great stat, especially for a young player). JBJ is exciting, but the question is do the Sox want to start his Free Agency clock at the start of the season or wait at least 11 days so they get an extra year out of him?

I don’t know about you, but I’m more excited for this season than I have been in the past. It seems that there’s almost a calmness to this team after last year’s three-ring circus with manager Bobby Valentine as ringmaster. As and added bonus, there are young, exciting players that are pushing their way into the spotlight.

Later this week I’ll give my predictions on where I think the team and certain players will end up this season. I was way off last year, so we’ll see how this year transpires.