The Boston Red Sox Tuesday, March 3, 2020 * The Boston Globe At Red Sox camp, things seem familiar — but we know it’s not really the same this year Chad Finn FORT MYERS, Fla. — Leave it to Xander Bogaerts to nonchalantly address . well, not so much the elephant in the room, but the absence of a certain big name who is no longer in that room. Last season, his sixth full one with the Red Sox, Bogaerts emerged as a true force in all the right ways. On the field, he delivered his finest season to date at age 26, slashing .309/.384/.555 with 33 home runs, finishing fifth in the American League Most Valuable Player race. Off the field, he was a fulcrum, his fluency in multiple languages bridging a diverse clubhouse while he also took the responsibility of being available and accountable in the toughest times. Bogaerts became everything he was supposed to be since arriving to help the Red Sox win the 2013 World Series as a preternaturally poised 20-year-old. But even in his ascent to stardom, his casual candor was sometimes startling. It was Bogaerts who first acknowledged in 2017 that, yes, the freshly retired David Ortiz was deeply missed. It was, of course, both obvious and true. But teams sometimes will contort themselves to convince us that all is well, that obvious voids have been filled. Interim manager Ron Roenicke and Red Sox personnel have not dodged the subject of Mookie Betts’s departure this spring, But on Monday, Bogaerts became the first to say so strikingly that the team feels pressure to fill Betts’s void. Bogaerts makes the truth look easy to tell, so it was fitting that he was the one to make the acknowledgment. Bogaerts, who has been sidelined this spring with a sore ankle, was asked if his desire to improve each season meant that he thought he could be even better this season than he was a year ago. “Whew!’’ he said with a quick laugh. “Hey, it’s not going to be easy.” He was then asked whether he felt added pressure coming off such a big year. That’s when he brought up Betts, the 2018 AL MVP and franchise cornerstone who was traded to the Dodgers in early February, a year from free agency. “I don’t think it’s going to be added pressure,” said Bogaerts. “I just think that knowing that we traded away Mookie, that might put some pressure on us to go out and do more. I think we should be a little careful with that. We just don’t want to put pressure on ourselves and get in a big hole just because we want to fill someone’s shoes like Mookie’s. “Mookie is one of the best players in the game. Don’t try to go out and do that. Just let the game come to you, play the game the way you know, and just do the stuff you know. Don’t go out there and try to hit three homers in a game. I haven’t seen anyone hit that mark so much like he did. “Obviously he’s one of the best game-changers in our game — one swing, one defensive play.” NESN’s Steve Lyons then mentioned to Bogaerts that the same could be said about him. “But two would be better than one, right?’’ said Bogaerts. “We obviously have a lot of talented guys on this team, and I know we can make it work.” The outward suggestions of sameness this spring could fool you if you let them. The Red Sox have spent their springs here at JetBlue Park since the venue they like to call “Fenway South” opened in 2012. It’s become a familiar kind of lovely. History is marked around every turn: a banner featuring Carlton Fisk, Pedro Martinez, and other franchise greats under the word “Legendary” over here, large replicas of the ball club’s 11 retired numbers (including Jackie Robinson’s No. 42, retired leaguewide) over there, reminders of the franchise’s nine World Series championships in multiple prominent spots. A signpost marking the distance to Fenway (1,456 miles) as well as the various minor league outposts stands at the end of the walkway to the clubhouses. The big-league clubhouse is roughly 50 yards and yet a million miles from the minor league clubhouse, where would-be prospects toss medicine balls against the wall and hoist kettle bells. Players chatter in English and Spanish. Mitts pop, bats crackle with contact. The birds chirp, the breeze blows. It seems the same as this time last year. But step inside the big-league clubhouse, where Bogaerts had his conversation with reporters, and it’s obvious it is so much different. A year ago, the Red Sox were coming off the 119-win championship season. Alex Cora was the popular manager. Betts was the reigning MVP. Dustin Pedroia had high hopes of a comeback. The faces in the clubhouse were mostly familiar. Ultimately, the only new face to make the 2019 Opening Day roster was reliever Colten Brewer. Now? The Red Sox have 67 players in big league camp. Enter the clubhouse and look right, and there are so many unfamiliar nameplates above the lockers: Springs, Brice, Bandy. Reporters waited in vain to talk to Phillips Valdez, the most recent arrival as a waiver claim from the Rangers. Sure, some familiar and accomplished players remain. J.D. Martinez walked through and suggested to reporters they should be writing about the coronavirus and the impact it could have on pro sports. Rafael Devers, Andrew Benintendi, and Chris Sale made clubhouse cameos. Many others were in Lakeland as a split squad took on the Tigers. It looks like Camp Tranquility on the surface, but unless you were hibernating through the chaos of the offseason, you know better. The specter of punishment for a 2018 sign-stealing accusation still lingers. Cora is gone as part of the fallout from the massive Astros scandal. And Roenicke is getting a crash course in how to use an “opener.” So much has changed. Good to know Bogaerts has not. He still tells it like it is, even if it means talking about who isn’t here rather than who is. Chaim Bloom’s opening conundrum: How to get Red Sox enough starters Christopher L. Gasper The Bruins are steamrolling, the Celtics are surging, the Tom Brady Watch is raging from airport boarding lines to sports talk phone lines. Meanwhile, the Red Sox are in Fort Myers, Fla., biding their time, solving for a winning equation that doesn’t include Mookie Betts or David Price. It’s hard to know what to make of the 2020 luxury tax-resetting Red Sox, but following a week in sunny and blustery southwest Florida, this much is clear to me: This iteration of the Sox will go as far as the three arms at the top of the starting rotation — Chris Sale, Eduardo Rodriguez, and Nate Eovaldi — can take them. On a team whose potential is tough to peg, there is no area of projection murkier than the starting rotation. It could fall anywhere from dominant to disastrous. Nobody questions the talent of the top three. They have the right stuff to headline a formidable rotation and cover for the lack of an identifiable fifth starter and a pedestrian fourth, Martin Perez, with an inflamed earned run average. We’ve seen that with Rodriguez, coming off a breakout 19-win season, mowing down the Yankees Saturday with six strikeouts in three innings, and Eovaldi, fanning four Braves in three innings Sunday. The issue is the ephemeral and fickle nature of their health, exemplified by spindly ace Sale already ticketed to the injured list after ending last season idled on it. For a club wisely focused on sustainability in the Chaim Bloom era, it’s unclear whether the starting rotation can sustain playoff contention. If Sale, Rodriguez, and Eovaldi end up in the familiar territory of the breakdown lane, then a return trip to the postseason is doomed to crash and burn. While Betts is the most noticeable missing piece, it’s misery agent Price’s pitching that could prove more difficult to fill. Even without Markus Lynn Betts, offense won’t be an issue, not with Xander Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez, Rafael Devers, and a properly recalibrated Andrew Benintendi. Last year, the Sox scored 901 runs — more than they did during their 2018 World Series-winning season (876) — and slugged a club- record 245 home runs. They return 197 of those homers. Run prevention (where have we heard that phrase before?) prowess proves trickier to project. Patriots coach Bill Belichick is fond of saying that reliability is more important than ability. The Sox’ top three starters possess a lot of the latter and not enough of the former. If the Sox had loaded the trio onto the baseball big rig transporting equipment south on Truck Day, they would have slapped “handle with care” and “fragile” stickers on them. Sale is simultaneously a Cy Young Award winner and a hardball hiatus waiting to happen. The only thing that has kept him from claiming his rightful hardware is that he appears hard-wired to falter physically before the finish line. Last season, elbow trouble truncated an uneven season (6-11, 4.40 ERA, but 13.3 strikeouts per 9) in mid-August. Now, pneumonia has stunted Sale’s spring training progression, making 15 pitches of live batting practice Sunday a momentous milestone.