Playing nine innings while much preferring day baseball to wee-small-hours-of-the-morning baseball . . .
1. I don’t know if it was actually the Red Sox’ first fortunate break of the 2019 season Wednesday night, but it sure did feel that way. Mookie Betts drove in the go-ahead run plus an insurance run with two outs in the ninth inning when his chopper to third base hit the bag and ricocheted into left field for a double. It wasn’t exactly a rocket into the gap, and it might not even qualify as a Mookie moment we will remember at season’s end, but it was the crucial hit — capping an eight-pitch at-bat — in a victory that snapped a four-game losing streak, and it sure felt necessary in these wobbly early innings of the season.