Bregman crushes HR, Crochet flashes K's in big-time Red Sox debuts

Alex Bregman has hit plenty of homers in front of Boston fans, but this one is bound to be Red Sox Nation's favorite. The newly acquired star infielder slugged a two-run shot over the Green Monster at JetBlue Park in the second inning of his spring debut for the Red Sox on Sunday.

Bregman, who hit seven regular-season homers at Fenway Park with the Astros plus two more in the playoffs, took Blue Jays right-hander Andrew Bash deep over the towering left-field wall that's actually four feet taller in South Florida than its counterpart in Boston.

Bregman exited after five innings. He went 3-for-3, including a single to right in his first at-bat and a double off the Monster in his final plate appearance in the fourth.

¡°It felt great. Kind of breaks the ice on Spring Training,¡± said Bregman. ¡°You kind of get to feeling a little bit better. We've been working hard on some mechanical things that I was doing early in my career, that I kind of stopped doing the last few years, and been working hard in the cage with [hitting coaches] Pete [Fatse] and Dillon [Lawson] and [Ben Rosenthal] and was happy to see some good swings today.¡±

Garrett Crochet, Boston's other marquee acquisition in the offseason, also made his debut in his new uniform, striking out four over 1 2/3 scoreless innings in which he threw 27 pitches -- 17 for strikes.

"It was cool, it was special, especially with the guys that were playing behind me," said Crochet. "Obviously, Bregman kind of showed today why we wanted him over here. So it was really cool.¡±