Trevor Story news, bad home opener make good Red Sox vibe disappear fast | Cotillo.
BOSTON — Tuesday was supposed to be a celebratory day at Fenway Park. The 2004 team was back in town, the sun was shining and most surprisingly, the actual team on the field had inspired its fan base with an encouraging 7-3 West Coast swing that featured a pitching display so promising that Andrew Bailey got one of the loudest ovations of the day during pregame introductions before the home opener.
“We make jokes about the vibe, but the vibe is real,” manager Alex Cora said pregame. “I could tell yesterday. A lot of people came up to me excited about the team and the way we’re playing.”
With the way the day went for the Red Sox, if there were any good vibes left at first pitch, they were surely gone by the time a sellout crowd of 36,093 filed out of Fenway after watching the Orioles run a relay race around the bases while the team in white held auditions for the next reboot of the “Bad News Bears.” A six-hour stretch that began with news that starter Nick Pivetta was headed to the
injured list with a flexor strain in his elbow ended with Trevor Story choking back tears over the news that shoulder surgery would end his season. In between was a totally uninspiring performance on the field that highlighted gaping holes on a flawed roster. The pageantry of the home opener quickly gave way to more doubt about where the 2024 Red Sox are headed. A 7-4 record suddenly feels much worse.
Anybody who previewed the Red Sox season in spring training knew that bounce-back seasons from both Lucas Giolito and Story would be pivotal to any chances the club had. Thanks to injuries, the Red Sox will get just 34 plate appearances from Story and exactly zero innings from Giolito, who underwent elbow surgery in March. The Pivetta injury, while much less serious, takes away one of the few certainties the Red Sox will count on. For at least a couple weeks, their innings-eater will go hungry.
