$223M Red Sox Proving Star-Studded Roster Is Worth Every Penny

There was so much talk all winter about the New York Yankees that you could forget it was actually the Boston Red Sox who won the American League East last year. There were so many people picking the Yankees to win this year that you could forget it was actually the Red Sox who went all-in with a $223 million payroll.

It was the Red Sox who addressed their biggest need by signing J.D. Martinez, the best home run hitter on the free-agent market.

Now it's the Red Sox who are 9-1 for the first time in their history. It's the Red Sox who were 14-1 winners Tuesday night in the first big AL East rivalry game of the season.

Tell me again which one of these teams was going to set scoring records this year.

No, we shouldn't overreact to one game any more than we should have overreacted when Giancarlo Stanton's first swing as a Yankee turned into a home run. As you may have heard, Stanton has swung and missed on every swing since (or something like that).

We should remember the Red Sox built their start on nine straight games against two teams from Florida, the state that decided against trying to win major league games this season. We should remember the last time the Red Sox beat the Yankees 14-1, it was August 2009 and that Yankees team was on its way to winning a World Series.

But we should also remember all the early reasons to believe this Red Sox team can be special, from Mookie Betts hitting like it's 2016 (when he finished second in Most Valuable Player voting) to Chris Sale and David Price and Craig Kimbrel pitching like it's pretty much any recent season.

Price, who faces the Yankees on Wednesday night, hasn't allowed a run in his first two starts and may now be comfortable in Boston. Sale, who won Tuesday, has allowed two runs in 17 innings.

Billie Weiss/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images

Martinez hasn't gotten hot, with only one home run, but with the team playing so well around him, the heat hasn't been on him the way it was on Stanton at Yankee Stadium last week. Stanton became the first player ever with two five-strikeout games in a single homestand and possibly the first defending MVP to hear boos in his home opener.

The focus was on him and on the Yankees adding him as the big move of the winter. There was less talk about whether their determination to stay under the luxury-tax threshold kept them from building a solid rotation or filling their infield with the best players they could find.

Now CC Sabathia is on the disabled list, and the Yankees don't yet have a fifth starter to replace him. Now the fill-ins at second base and third base are off to so-so starts, and Michael Kay openly wondered on the YES Network on Tuesday night how soon the Yankees will call up Gleyber Torres, the 21-year-old superprospect who is hitting .348 in the early going at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

But enough about them. We've spent more than enough time on the team that finished second in the AL East last year (and hasn't won the division since 2012).

We've spent far too much time talking about Stanton and Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge (though did you see that Judge home run Tuesday? Wow!) and not enough time on Betts and Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts and Hanley Ramirez.

The Red Sox had to put Bogaerts (1.111 OPS) on the disabled list because of a small crack in a bone in his left ankle, but they said he could be back as soon as 10 days. Then they played their first game without him, and Betts became the first Red Sox player to score five runs against the Yankees.

As Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe tweeted:

Betts raised his OPS to 1.263. Ramirez, who hit .261 in his first three seasons after coming back to the Red Sox, is hitting .359.

It's early, but not as early as it was when we all got so excited about the Yankees and their power. There's no need and no reason to declare the AL East decided. The Yanks and Sox play 18 more times—at least 18 more times, because it would hardly be a surprise to see them meet again in October.

A 9-1 start doesn't mean everything, especially when eight of the nine wins came against the Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins. But it also doesn't mean nothing.

It means we probably should have talked about the Red Sox a little more and the Yankees a little less.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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