One difference in the current teams is that the Red Sox are further along in their transition to youth after winning the A.L. East last season on the backs of their killer B’s: outfielders Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr. and shortstop Xander Bogaerts. A late call-up last year, outfielder Andrew Benintendi, has the name — and the game — to join those three.

So when the Red Sox added the redoubtable Sale to team with the previous year’s big-ticket signing, David Price, and the reigning A.L. Cy Young Award winner Rick Porcello, they looked to be as certain a shot to win the A.L. East this season as the Warriors’ Curry and Thompson are from beyond the 3-point line.

But while the Red Sox have begun the season reasonably well — they are 11-8, a half-game behind the Yankees and two behind Baltimore in the A.L. East — their start has been anything but smooth.

Price is not scheduled to return until the middle of next month after having complained of elbow pain during spring training; the versatile Brock Holt is on the disabled list with vertigo; and a flu bug hit the Red Sox so hard that it sent reliever Robbie Ross to the disabled list and prompted the team to fumigate the home clubhouse at Fenway.

On Tuesday, Boston may be without second baseman Dustin Pedroia, who has not played since being spiked on a slide by the Orioles’ Manny Machado last Friday.

The play prompted outrage from the Red Sox at the time, and then apparently inspired reliever Matt Barnes to throw a fastball behind the head of Machado on Sunday, touching off angry words between the teams and leading Pedroia to apologize to Machado for Barnes’s actions. (Barnes was suspended for four games by Major League Baseball on Monday and plans to appeal.)

It was the type of dust-up that was reminiscent of those between the Red Sox and Yankees, whether it was Pedro Martinez tossing Don Zimmer to the ground in the 2003 postseason, or Jason Varitek giving a face wash to Rodriguez in 2004, or, in something of a throwback, Ryan Dempster plunking Rodriguez in 2013 after he had been linked again to performance-enhancing drug use.