Michael O’Brien ‘23

Co-Editor-in-Chief

Spring has officially sprung in the city of Worcester, and that can only mean one thing–the return of Woo Sox baseball.

     Sitting at 8-9 at the time this was written, the Sox have had a modest start to the year, and earlier this month The Spire headed to their second game of the year to watch them take on the Syracuse Mets on April 1.

     Despite a dominant 11-2 win on Opening Day, the Sox and Mets went back and forth early; Brett Baty’s fingerprints were all over the first inning for the Mets as his solo shot put Syracuse up 1-0, and then made a fantastic catch in the field to keep the score 1-0 after the 1st.

     In the bottom of the 2nd, Caleb Hamilton snatched the lead back for the Sox with a powerful two run homer to make it a 2-1 game, but it was all Mets from the 3rd inning on.

     Including Jonathan Arauz’s two run single to make it a 3-1 ballgame in the top of the inning, the Mets went on to score an astounding 12 unanswered runs to make it 13-3 by the top of the sixth. Not only was Baty, who was recently just called up to the MLB by the Mets organization, electrifying in the first inning, but his grand slam in the 6th inning essentially wrapped the game up with a bow for Syracuse. 

     Despite an inkling of a rally from the Sox to cut the lead down to 13-6 by the bottom of the 7th, the Mets quickly tacked on three more runs, including a solo homer in the 9th inning by #1 Prospect Francisco Alvarez, and the final score was a lopsided one at 16-6. 

     After the game, The Spire was granted access to the Sox clubhouse, where we were given a chance to speak with Bobby Dalbec, who has bounced back and forth between the MLB and AAA this season.

     Although Dalbec put up some good numbers during spring training (.235 BA with 6 RBI in 18 games), the organization decided to leave him in AAA to start the season. When asked if this was a disappointing situation, Dalbec said “It’s not a great feeling, but that’s just the way things shake out sometimes. I’m just happy to be playing professional baseball with a great group of guys, so we’ll take it one game at a time.”

     When asked to comment on his team’s performance against the Mets, Dalbec replied “It was obviously tough on the pitching end…it shows that you can still lose games whle putting up six runs, so I think it still shows our offense is very capable. It’s just how it crumbles sometimes, but we still have confidence in those guys in the bullpen.”

     Dalbec has also experimented with position playing by making the switch from first base to shortstop in Worcester, in addition to a noticeably different approach behind the plate, namely in his ability to not chase after balls and draw more walks.

     When asked about these changes to his game, Dalbec said “It’s more so getting back to the old me before 2021, namely using the big part of the field in right center more often. It was a staple for me and it just kind of got ironed out a little bit and I feel really great at the plate.”

     With this sort of versatile approach at the plate and in the field, Dalbec was asked if he thought that there was a lot of pressure for him to show his flexibility within the organization, to which he answered “No, not really. I’m just trying to use my athleticism and my instincts; I feel like I have good baseball instincts. I feel like I know where to be at the right times; I know I can make the routine plays and good ones too along the way. I’m just getting the work in different positions, and it’s something other players need to do all the time, so maybe it’s a little more of a workload, but it is what it is.”

     The Woo Sox next homestand lasts from April 25th to April 30th against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, the New York Yankees AAA affiliate. Make sure to head to Polar Park to catch a game before finals season kicks into high gear!