The Red Sox won their season finally yesterday 6-3 at Fenway to wrap up a disappointing 2022 campaign at 78-84. Ironically, in a season that never felt to have the magic, momentum, or promise that last year had, yesterday’s win looked an awful lot like the 2021 team. Solid but unremarkable starting pitching, bend but don’t break work by the bullpen, and the big boys leading the way offensively. Alas, though, the 2022 team was never able to string many wins like yesterday together, short of that 43-game stretch from May 10th (11-19) to June 26 (42-31) that saw them go 31-12.
In the coming days and weeks, I’ll write a number of blogs fully recapping the season, assessing their needs moving forward, laying out a plan for the 2022-2023 offseason, and predicting what they will actually do. But today’s blog is less about baseball and more about people. Yesterday was an undeniably emotional day at Fenway with the actual baseball game serving as a side dish and the people involved taking center stage.
First up is Xander Bogaerts. The X-man turned 30 on October 1st yet has already played 1264 games, 15th all-time in Red Sox History. Bogaerts signed a 6-year $120M deal before the 2019 season that contained a player opt-out after the 2022 season, and with the way Corey Seager, Carlos Corea, and Trevor Story got paid last offseason, Xander is absolutely going to exercise his opt-out and enter unrestricted free agency for the first time in his career.
He finished the year hitting .307 which was good for 3rd in the AL, and although his power numbers took a dip this year (as did most of Major League Baseball with total home runs hit falling by 729 to 5215 from 5944, or about. 12.3%) his defensive metrics were the best of his career. There will be no shortage of suitors for the 30-year-old shortstop. Although the Red Sox will be one of those teams vying for his services, there’s a real chance that yesterday was the last time he will ever take the field at Fenway Park wearing a Red Sox uniform, something that was not lost on manager Alex Cora and the Fenway faithful. Xander was pulled from the game just before the top of the 7th inning got underway, allowing those in the stands to show him some much-deserved love and letting him know how much he has meant to them.
Next up is JD Martinez. Dave O’Brien accurately pointed out yesterday that JD was the missing piece the Sox needed in 2018 to put them over the top and win the World Series. The Sox won the division in 2016 but lacked the pitching to make any noise in October. In 2017, following David Ortiz’s retirement, they won the division again but had a shocking lack of power and again exited in the first round. When JD signed in 2018, the Red Sox had a complete team and waltzed to the World Series. That alone would make JD worthy of praise, but he continued to produce in the subsequent 4 years on his 5-year deal (short of that 2020 anomaly), making 4 All-Star teams while hitting 130 home runs and driving in 432 runs in 637 games for the Red Sox.
Yesterday, Martinez got the scoring started with a 3-run home run into the Red Sox bullpen in the first and added a solo shot in the 4th to bring his season total to just 16. Despite his down year, JD was also the much-deserving recipient of his own moment. Alex Cora pulled JD back to the dugout from the on-deck circle in the 7th allowing the Sox fans in attendance to give JD the love he deserved. He won’t go down as an all-time great, but he was absolutely a key player in team history and should be cheered when he returns next year with a new team.
Then there was Dennis Eckersley. The Hall-of-Famer left an undeniable mark on the game during his 24-year career that included two stints on the Red Sox as well as time in Cleveland, Oakland, Chicago (Cubs), and St. Louis. It was during his second act as a broadcaster for the Red Sox, though, that he became a legend in Boston. Eck joined the NESN team in 2004 as a studio analyst and started making appearances in the broadcasting booth in the late 2000s with Jerry Remy’s health forcing him to step away from his spot alongside Don Orsillo from time to time.
Eck brought a different flair to the Sox broadcasts, a certain energy that was a welcome deviation from the legendary ways of the aforementioned Remy. Perhaps it was his standing in the game as an all-time great or just part of his personality, but Eck was a legendary storyteller, willing to talk about his success in life and baseball just as much as his failures, missteps, indiscretions, and his struggle with sobriety. He introduced a handful of sayings into the Boston lexicon and, as Dave O’Brien said yesterday, had an ability to make even a mundane game interesting. As Remy’s health continued to deteriorate, Eck took over as the lead color analyst for the Red Sox in what was a smooth transition.
Earlier this summer, Eck announced that this year would be his last in the booth and that he would bestepping away to spend more time with his family after the season. There were no health issues at the root of this decision with Eck and his wife both still in fine health. He simply has two 4-year-old grandkids that live in California and he wanted to be there to watch them grow up, in person, not through facetime.
Throughout the last few weeks of the season, his departure had been mentioned intermittently, but yesterday’s broadcast was all about Eck. O’Brien did a masterful job talking through the action on the field and giving Bogaerts and JD Martinez their well-deserved recognition and time while also consistently turning the attention back to Eck and letting him do what he does best, tell stories. The Sox played a touching tribute to Eck’s 50 years in baseball as both a player and a broadcaster that brought water to Eck’s eyes which turned into tears when the whole Red Sox team came out of the dugout and pointed to him in the booth acknowledging all he’s done for the team and the organization and the game of baseball.
We know Dennis Eckersley won’t be back next year, there’s probably little chance JD Martinez will be back, and Bogaerts’ future will be the subject of much debate over the next few months. But yesterday at Fenway, it wasn’t about the future. It was about appreciating three guys that have meant a monumental amount to the Red Sox and giving them their proverbial flowers before they were gone.
