Opening Day Eve

It's less than 24 hours away! The 2011 Red Sox season, which couldn't come fast enough on December 8, when The Nation learned that in addition to Adrian Gonzalez, the Sox landed Carl Crawford, starts at 4:05 pm tomorrow. Yes, on April Fool's Day. There will be no time for fooling for the Red Sox, unless you're talking about Jon Lester fooling Rangers batters.

The Opening Day lineup is as I had expected, with JD Drew sitting in favor of Mike Cameron against the tough lefty CJ Wilson:

Jacoby Ellsbury
Dustin Pedroia
Carl Crawford
Kevin Youkilis
Adrian Gonzalez
David Ortiz
Mike Cameron
Jarrod Saltalamacchia
Marco Scutaro

While some may quibble with Papi in the lineup against Wilson, I agree with Tito's deference to the veterans on Opening Day. Now if this were any other game, I would much rather see Darnell McDonald or Jed Lowrie DH-ing against a tough lefty (anything to get those lefty-killing bats in the lineup). I like seeing Cameron over Drew. Both are veterans and Tito does want to get at least ONE of those lefty-killers in there.

While the Red Sox face off against Wilson, the Rangers have a tough lefty of their own to contend with in Jon Lester. Lester is the right choice for Opening Day starter this year. He has been the Red Sox' most consistent starting pitcher over the past three years and he deserves the nod.

Lots of Red Sox and baseball blogs are trotting out their predictions for the season and most of them have the Red Sox winning the division. If they can stay healthy and perform to their level of talent, they have an excellent chance of doing so, even in a division as unforgiving as the AL East. A healthy offense will generate buckets of runs and a healthy defense should keep a good many opposing runs from scoring.

The pitching is, perhaps the most vulnerable spot for the Red Sox this year. Lester, Lackey, and Buchholz should be fine, with Lackey improving considerably on his 2010 performance. Beckett and Dice-K are the wild cards. Dice looked sharp in his last three Spring Training starts after new pitching coach Curt Young changed up his between-starts throwing routine and Beckett helped the Red Sox clown the Astros last night with 5 shutout innings. While the Astros lineup is not the Rangers, the Yankees, the Twins, etc, it was a confidence-building outing for him. Whether Dice-K's success in the latter part of Spring Training will carry over to the regular season remains to be seen, but there is reason to hope that Young's approach to the enigma that is Daisuke Matsuzaka may yield more consistent
results.

The bullpen looks to be considerably improved over last year, but all eyes will be on Papelbon and whether he can continue in the closer role, especially with the likes of Daniel Bard and Bobby Jenks waiting in the wings. Bullpen reinforcements biding their time in Pawtucket include Scott Atchison, Alfredo Aceves, and Hideki Okajima, among others.

If all goes reasonably well and the Great Injury Plague of 2010 doesn't strike again, a win total in the high 90s and/or a division title is well within reach. There's a lot of pressure on this year's team to not only make the playoffs, but to win the World Series. Can they win it all this year? Sure. Will they? I would like to think so, but baseball is an unpredictable game. Who predicted last year that the Giants would win it all? Sometimes it's a matter of what team gets hot at the right time. Other times, it's a matter of the clear superiority of one team over another.

Tomorrow afternoon. 4:05 pm EDT Ranger Stadium in Arlington Texas. Play Ball!