DHL Dan LXXXII - Making It Less Obvious

Instead of devoting another full column to the Boston Red Sox slow start, Shank, on a mini-vacation, devotes a mere four paragraphs to it:

OAKLAND, Calif. — Picked-up pieces from 10 days out west with the Red Sox . . .

■ While the Sox struggle out of the gate (tied with the Angels for the worst record in baseball going into Wednesday night), several key Yankees are returning from injuries or have gone down since the season started: Giancarlo Stanton, Miguel Andujar, Didi Gregorius, Aaron Hicks, Jacoby Ellsbury, Dellin Betances, CC Sabathia, Luis Severino, and Troy Tulowitzki. This has not gone unnoticed in the Boston clubhouse. The West Coast time zone allows the Sox to monitor their rivals back east. Almost daily, while the Sox are playing cards, listening to music, and getting ready to take batting practice, their clubhouse TVs are tuned into Yankee games vs. Baltimore or Detroit. Playing against the tanking Orioles and Tigers, the Yankees lost three of their first five.

■ New York’s injury bug makes it a good year for the Sox to start slow, but that doesn’t diminish the overreaction back home. A Globe reader e-mailed me and asked if the 2019 Red Sox might be the first team eliminated from contention before they have a chance to raise their championship banner. This is why we love the Boston baseball market.

Since there are fewer and fewer of them, $10 says the 'Globe reader' was none other than Shank himself.

■ The Red Sox can spin it any way they want, but there’s got to be something wrong with Chris Sale. Two starts, 59 fastballs, zero swings and misses.

He's actually watching the games? Stop the presses!

■ Just wondering, but did the 1950s and ’60s Yankees shut down Whitey Ford every spring training back in the days when Ford pitched in the World Series every year? Or are the Red Sox the first to invent the reduced spring workload plan that’s worked so well in the first week of the 2019 season?