A few of the relievers struggle a bunch."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Red Sox StoriesScheduleRosterStatsYahoo Red Sox NewsYahoo Red Sox Team PageYahoo Red Sox ReportYahoo Red Sox Depth ChartYahoo Red Sox TransactionsYahoo Red Sox PhotosOdds About Masthead Community Guidelines StubHub 鉁昍ed Sox Game StoriesRed Sox 2 Victor Martinez Jersey , Mets 10: YeeshNew,21commentsA few of the relievers struggle a bunch.ESTShareTweetShareShareRed Sox 2, Mets 10: YeeshJonathan Dyer-USA TODAY SportsThe Red Sox are in a bit of a snag right now, which isn’t a huge deal since, ya know, it’s March 9. This isn’t something to worry about looking ahead to the regular season, as we know the correlation between spring performance and what we see when the games start to matter isn’t great. That said, it’s also not super fun to watch. In this game, the offense did have a few more good swings than they’d had in the last few, though the runs total wasn’t any better. The real issue was the pitching. Specifically, it was the pitching from the three guys in the middle, all of whom hope to play varying roles in the majors this year.Matt Barnes struggles in his first appearance on 2019The Red Sox are easing the pitchers who had big workloads last October into the 2019 season, which makes sense. Alex Cora, as we all remember, leaned towards getting his guys as much rest as possible after a mostly normal offseason last year. It only makes sense he’d be even more extreme after 2018’s long playoff run. Eduardo Rodriguez is the only rotation member who has pitched so far — and he http://www.tigersfanproshop.com/authentic-joe-jimenez-jersey , of course, didn’t start in the postseason last year — and Matt Barnes hadn’t pitched heading into Saturday. That changed against the Mets, and it didn’t go well. The righty, who is likely to take over as closer this season with Craig Kimbrel all but certainly playing elsewhere, was hit hard by the Mets lineup. In all, Barnes allowed three runs over an inning of work. In that time he did strike out one, but he also gave up a triple, two doubles and a single. Rust is to be expected here, of course, and we can’t make any judgements off a pitcher’s first appearance. Still, given the mostly legitimate concerns about this team’s bullpen all eyes are going to be on their performances this spring.Tyler Thornburg struggles againComing in after Barnes was Tyler Thornburg, who had already made a few appearances this spring before Saturday’s game and has struggled. After all of his outings the Red Sox coaches have made sure to mention that Thornburg’s velocity and just general stuff looks better this year, but based on the results he still hasn’t been too tough to hit. This was yet another tough day for the righty, who like Barnes allowed three runs in an inning of work. Thornburg also struck out one batter, but he also gave up a mammoth home run to Peter Alonso along with three base hits. After this game James McCann Jersey , the former Brewer has now allowed seven runs over four innings in four appearances on ten hits (two homers), two walks and two strikeouts. If he’s healthy I don’t think there’s much of a chance that Thornburg misses out on the Opening Day roster — the only other option is to designate him for assignment — but even in that scenario you have to imagine the leash is going to be short.Other NotesThe offense only scored two runs in this game, but they did have some extra-base hits and seven hits altogether. That’s a bit of a step forward from the last couple games. Christian V谩zquez, who has struggled mightily at the plate to this point, was Boston’s only player with two hits. He went 2-3 with a double and a single. Rafael Devers had a triple and Mitch Moreland had a double.Eduardo Rodriguez got the start for Boston. If you’ll recall, Alex Cora was publicly critical of the lefty after his last outing, saying he needed to be more efficient. Rodriguez took that to heart early, throwing only 15 pitches in his first two innings with 13 being strikes. He slowed down a bit towards the end, but overall he still allowed just one run over four innings on three singles and a walk with three strikeouts. Overall, Cora was happy with what he saw on Saturday.Rounding out the day for the pitching was Josh Taylor and Domingo Tapia. The former had a very good seventh, giving up just a single with two strikeouts and a pop out. His second inning of work was rougher, though, as the Mets tagged him for three runs on a double, two singles and a walk. Taylor will start the year in the minors, but as he’s already on the 40-man he will have a real chance to get a call to the majors at some point this summer. Tapia pitched an easy 1-2-3 ninth. He is more of emergency depth http://www.tigersfanproshop.com/authentic-joe-jimenez-jersey , though given Boston’s potential need for reinforcements it wouldn’t be totally shocking if he pitched his way into a real opportunity at some point this year.BOX The team is taking a winner-take-all approach to the season."No one is taking credit for hanging it, but there is a new sign outside the Detroit Tigers spring training clubhouse in Lakeland, Fla. It shows a picture of the Commissioner’s Trophy, and says “Believe this is going to be US!! Don’t walk through this door until you do!” Manager Ron Gardenhire insists it wasn’t him. In fact, when he was initially asked about it by reporters, he said he hadn’t even seen it yet.Yeah, okay.Later, Gardenhire seemed to have bought into the aspirational message whole hog. He told MLB.com’s Jason Beck, “We’ve heard the rebuild, but the rebuild is from the front office. Inside the clubhouse and the coaching staff, we believe we’re going to win. We’re coming to the ballpark to put together a baseball team that’s going to win baseball games.”You might be inclined to scoff as such a lofty goal, but it represents a very important kind of disconnect between the team and the front office. General manager Al Avila recently indicated the Tigers were unlikely to be competitive for two or three more years. It was his way of shrugging off any expectations as the team continues to amass young talent in its farm system.It’s also something we’re seeing across baseball, as rebuilding teams seem to show a disinterest in even attempting to field a winning team, while hoarding prospects the way Smaug stockpiles his gold.Though Avila implied that the team won’t be competitive, the Tigers have another idea Sparky Anderson Jersey , and their idealism is... well, it’s infectious. For a team that no one is predicting to be very good, the Tigers — the players and coaches — seem blithely unaware of what baseball higher ups see in their immediate future. They are a team of men who want to get out on the field and win games. They are players in the prime of their lives who couldn’t give a hoot what baseball experts predict. A 90 or 100 loss season? The 2019 Tigers don’t think so. They think they’re going to the World Series. And I kind of want to believe them.It defies logic, and appeals to an animal-brained part of my fandom, but the enthusiasm and positivity the Tigers are demonstrating right out of the gate this year is catching. Almost the entire pitching staff was in Lakeland a week early, ready to get started. Many of the full squad are already present working out.This team wants to win.They aren’t willing to bide their time and accept a mandate from up above that says losing is beneficial. This isn’t a team that’s planning to tank. This is a team that wants to exceed expectation the way the 2017 Minnesota Twins did. Everyone predicted that the Twins, who had a 59-103 record in 2016, would return to the bottom of the division in 2017. Instead they faced the Yankees in the AL Wild Card game.Weird baseball miracles happen. They could happen for Detroit.The Tigers front office hasn’t made any moves to improve the team, but don’t tell the players that. New Tigers shortstop Jordy Mercer rolled into TigerFest last month eager to join the team (and his well-spoken approach to interviews is going to make him a popular target for sound bites this season). Nicholas Castellanos was featured in a recent MLB hype video, and the team is definitely feeding off that hype.There are a hundred reasons to count the Tigers out, but they don’t care.The Detroit Tigers think they’re going to win.Let’s believe them. Even if they don’t make it to the postseason, they are hoping to field a fun and exciting squad. A team that wants to be out there winning games is infinitely more enjoyable to watch that a team that accepts failure before they’re even at Opening Day.Whatever their record ends up being, seeing the Tigers lean into winning is making this spring training infinitely more interesting.