The temperature may not feel like it, but Opening Day at Fenway Park means spring has officially returned to Boston.
Bundled up in a winter coat before Thursday's game at Fenway Park, Tammy Braz of Simsbury, Connecticut summed up how she was feeling.
"Cold!" she said with a laugh. "Cold but excited. And I hope we get a win today."
In the end, she didn't get her wish. The Sox lost to the Baltimore Orioles 10-9, in an opener that was much closer in the end than appeared likely throughout much of the game.
Before the game, Braz's husband, Tony, said after last year's last-place finish in the American League East, he's not feeling too optimistic about this season.
"I've been a fan since 1967, so I'm used to good years and bad years," he said. "So, just hope for the best every year."
As the weather warms up in the coming days and months, Sox fans are hoping their team heats up, too.
"It's going to be a little tough, but I think we'll be all right," said Novar Whitworth of Dedham, who comes to Opening Day every year with a group of college friends. "We're always coming with a 'go' attitude, so we'll see how things go."
His friend James Sullivan of Westborough was thinking about the Sox' chief baseball officer as this season gets started.
"Hoping for Chaim Bloom's sake that team get some wins this year," Sullivan said. "I think he's on the hot seat for sure."
In addition to new rules intended to speed up the game , there are a number of new faces on the team this year that Bloom is hoping will energize the Red Sox. Those include left fielder Masataka Yoshida, who was signed from his home team in Japan.
After the shock of losing All-Star shortstop Xander Bogaerts to the San Diego Padres this season, the Sox signed a record deal to keep star third baseman Rafael Devers.
"It's just a lot of hope," said Kim Hearst of North Attleboro. "I'm not so sure that keeping Raffi [Devers] was all we were going to need to do, but let's hope that keeping Raffi brings enough spark to the team so that we can enjoy the year."
"I'm not expecting a playoff run from this team," said Hearst's husband, Hal. "But I'm expecting a lot of good baseball, a fun team to watch. And it's going to be a fun year."
The Red Sox finished last season with a record of 78 wins and 84 losses. The previous year they made a surprise run into the post-season, ultimately losing the American League Championship Series 4-2 to the Houston Astros.
"I don't know," Parker Silva of Attleboro said of the team's chances. "They've lost a lot of talent. They've picked up some. I'm hoping for [the Sox to] go back to the playoffs again. But, we'll see. It's a long season. Everybody stays healthy, you never know what could happen. You know?"
New Sox starting pitcher Corey Kluber gave up a home run on just the second batter of the season and the Orioles were up 10-4 by the top of the 8th inning. But before the sold-out Fenway crowd could give in to despair, the Sox battled back, scoring five runs in the last two innings and bringing the game within one bat stroke of a win. Ultimately, a ninth-inning strikeout by Adam Duvall in his first game with the Sox brought the team's rally and hopes of an Opening Day win to an abrupt end.
"It's always disappointing," Sox manager Alex Cora said to the press after the game. "You always want to win that first one. We'll try again next year."
Sox fan Mike O'Neil of Rockland had mixed feelings on this lineup's debut performance.
"It was sloppy, but I'm OK with that," O'Neil said. "I wish that we spent more money, and I saw that on the field today. But at the end of the day, I was OK with the product."
The team's leadership needs to be more willing to invest in big players, O'Neil said.
"I think that this is a team that likes to compete. And that's what we've done the last five, six years is we have underdog teams that want to prove they're not underdogs," O'Neil said. "But we're the Boston Red Sox and we're not supposed to be underdogs. We're supposed to be top dogs."
