ORLANDO, Fla. — Off Martin Prado’s bat, the ball appeared headed safely into center field for a leadoff single off Lester — possibly the start of a nice inning for the Atlanta offense. And against last year’s Red Sox defense, that’s where it would have ended up.
This year, though, Marco Scutaro is healthy again.
Scutaro snagged Prado’s grounder up the middle, scrambled to his feet and gunned down the Braves’ leadoff hitter in the third — one of those small plays that wins baseball games. It was exactly the kind of play Scutaro couldn’t make in 2010, when he was dealing with a right-shoulder injury so painful he couldn’t even practice.
“Every time I went back, I got a knife in here,” Scutaro said pointing to his shoulder. But now, “everything’s fine.”
A healthy Scutaro could go a long way toward shoring up the middle of the Boston defense, decimated a season ago by injuries to Scutaro, Dustin Pedroia, Mike Cameron and Jacoby Ellsbury.
The home run the shortstop hit to lead off the game off Atlanta’s Tommy Hanson was just icing on the cake, as Boston won, 4-3.
When it comes to his bullpen, manager Terry Francona has a problem. And he couldn’t be happier about it.
“Everybody’s done well. It’s pretty exciting,” Francona said of the spring performance of his relievers. “It’ll be a difficult week. There’s going to be a couple guys that don’t make this team that deserve to.”
The Red Sox will likely carry a dozen pitchers on Opening Day, meaning there are seven open slots in the bullpen. Jonathan Papelbon, Daniel Bard, Bobby Jenks and Dan Wheeler all have positions sewn up. That leaves three spots for Hideki Okajima, Dennys Reyes, Rich Hill, Matt Albers, Tim Wakefield, Scott Atchison and Alfredo Aceves.
Hideki Okajima, Dennys Reyes and Rich Hill are battling it out as left-handed options in the Sox bullpen. Boston would probably prefer to carry two southpaws — they do play nine games in Yankee Stadium, mind you — but there hasn’t been much distinction among the three of them. Okajima has the longest track record with the team, but he did allow four runs in his first appearance of the spring. He’s been clean in the four innings since. Reyes allowed his first run in five spring innings Wednesday, on a bunt single by catcher David Ross. Hill has tossed seven scoreless frames.
Okajima has minor-league options left — he’s never pitched below the majors — while Reyes and Hill are each signed to minor-league deals.
“If it’s a problem, it’s a nice one,” said Francona. “I’d much rather have it that way than have guys eliminate themselves.”
When Ryan Kalish made a baserunning gaffe on Monday night against the Yankees, Francona made sure to yell at him personally.
It wasn’t that Francona was that upset with Kalish; he just hadn’t been able to do much criticizing of late.
“This is as easy a camp to run. There’s no babysitting,” he said on Wednesday. “It’s a fun group to be around.”
That sentiment was echoed by Jon Lester, who said the starting rotation manages to be supportive of and competitive with one another at the same time.
“The competitiveness is in a good way. We push each other to do better,” Lester said the same day he was named the team’s Opening Day starter. “We all want to succeed and we all want to get to one common goal. You ask anybody in this clubhouse and they’d feel the same way about the guy sitting next to them.”
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