Isn’t hope nice? This version of hope, I mean. Following the Red Sox these past five years has been nothing but an exercise in hope, groping through names might offer one something at a time when reaching playoff baseball requires so little. Alex Verdugo. Bobby Dalbec. Michael Chavis. Franchy Cordero. Garrett Whitlock. Martín Pérez. Josh Taylor. Tanner Houck. Christian Arroyo. Christian Vázquez. Hunter Renfroe. Jarren Duran, before adoption of expletive as mantra. Jackie Bradley Jr., after any of the good memories. Chris Sale, before and after the Tommy John and the TV and the line drive and the bike. (Alas, only before the Cy Young.) Trevor Story. Kiké Hernández. Adam Duvall. Masataka Yoshida. Pablo Reyes. (Don’t pretend he didn’t have a moment.) Corey Kluber. James Paxton. Kutter Crawford. Triston Casas. Tyler O’Neill. Vaughn Grissom. Brayan Bello. It’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” but by an autotuned Kid Rock and ends with you burning. The current age of sports in New England is being able to talk yourself into anything, and for a while, the only Red Sox constant seemed a desire to prove it. What truly starts Thursday afternoon in an airplane hangar outside Dallas is not the above, that much we know. That much we can celebrate. Calling it the tomorrow previously articulated by your local Major League Baseball team? Generous, at this hour. That the whole thing didn’t implode while rolling through three baseball operations administrations is, I suppose, something. But proclaiming something yuuuge is just around that dark corner over there is a generous definition of the word “articulate.” It’s what the soccer people call “time wasting,” and it gets you a yellow card. (Insert your own reference to the Marathon jerseys here.) Boston’s second-best offensive player by cumulative WAR since the start of 2020 is Xander Bogaerts, going on his third year with the Padres. Its best pitcher by that metric was Nick Pivetta, a league-average starter who simply threw 200 more innings than anyone else. Its third best is Nate Eovaldi, the opposition on Thursday. And it is all . . . OK. Because Opening Day brings what feels like a cleansing breath from all of it, no Sam Kennedy bill of goods needed. We are scant hours from fretting either that Garrett Crochet is not all that was promised, and certainly not worth that catching prospect three percent of you have ever seen play, or that Garrett Crochet hasn’t been signed to an extension yet. That the “we’ll figure it out” approach to the back end of the bullpen is the closer by committee of this generation. That Rafael Devers as DH, a role that David Ortiz told us for years is not as easy as it seems, isn’t going to work. That Kristian Campbell, 51 weeks removed from being the Opening Day DH for the High-A Greenville Drive, will be just another name for the list above. (The surest bet in this list, given what we’ve seen in recent years from phenom prospects getting their first taste.) In brief, the nine-inning overreactions of a fan base not hoping for good things, but expecting them. The Red Sox are back. For me, feeling better about the 2025 team is a lot different than feeling good. It was a weird spring, where the nicest things to say were mostly about not being everybody else. The Yankees are a hospital ward without even including Gerrit Cole. (Losing the chance to mash against him until 2026? Man, Devers had a bad winter.) Outside of O’Neill and unmoving the fences at Camden Yards, the Orioles basically spun their wheels. The Blue Jays didn’t sign Vlad Guerrero Jr. to an extension. More afield, the Guardians kept ace Shane Bieber, but traded All-Star Josh Naylor. The Astros lost Alex Bregman and traded Kyle Tucker. The Mariners pulled a modern Red Sox — lot of needs, little action. The Twins operated in the shadow of a potential club sale and basically crossed their fingers about being healthier this year. What’s it all mean? Playoff expectations are back in Boston, which figures to get a J.D. Martinez-like boost from Bregman no matter how he plays. The stories of him forging connections up and down the organization were exactly what you hope for, and I remain flabbergasted that they won the game of chicken to get him at their terms. Alas, those expectations are still predicated on the Red Sox handling their business. Duran needs a strong followup to a career-altering breakout, no small thing for a player wracked with self doubt. (Alex Cora reminding of Andrew Benintendi’s ill-fated turn toward power in 2019 … not helping!) Story needs to stay healthy, we collectively said for the fourth straight year with unease. Whitlock, Bello, and Lucas Giolito — three-fifths of the rotation — had rickety springs and will start the season on the sidelines. Is Walker Buehler the guy we saw in the playoffs with the Dodgers, or the guy who’s been brittle and below league average since his stellar 2021? Fortunately, they have time. The bar for a championship in Rob Manfred’s MLB is be nominally competent and get hot for a month during football season. Even the dark-ages Red Sox could manage .500 on Bobby Bonilla Day . . . heck, last year’s team lives there for all-time. They have time, and they have talent. If only “trust” could truly finish the alliteration. For all the positive steps the Red Sox took this winter, they still just flung around a lot of short money. Crochet was a trade, and making not even $4 million in his second of three possible arbitration years. Bregman has opt-outs after both 2025 and 2026 … there are NFL players with a better chance of playing out their full contracts. Devers, Ceddanne Rafaela, and Bello remain the only three Red Sox signed out past 2028. Obviously, they have younger players under team control beyond that, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with flexibility. But it underscores that this potential-laden team before us is still a fleeting thing. They have a runway to become something, but it doesn’t run forever. A back-of-the-mind thought as the engines power up today. And one that doesn’t obscure the one in the front of the mind. How nice it is again to think that power-up can’t get here soon enough.