Yesterday's Game Is Ignored So We Can Run Through The Roster
Red Sox run away with one and I kinda do too but with the roster
When Rafael Devers hit that grand slam… it was like breaking out of the pool after holding your breath for too long. It was just one home run, but it was so much more than that, too. The Red Sox, on the strength of that grand slam, that delicious no-doubter that had the Braves center fielder lightly jogging towards the wall as the 747 passed over his head, won a baseball game.
The five run advantage was the most since Boston won 7-1 in Toronto 14 years ago. No, wait, sorry, 14 days ago.
Here, watch it again and drink it in.
It was a great win, not really for any other reason than it was a win, and there have been precious few of those recently. But I don’t want to talk about the win too much. It’s one game, and by the time you read this there will be another game tomorrow.
Yesterday’s game was game number 30 on the season, so I want to go through all the players and give quick thoughts on each, sometimes a sentence, sometimes more. Just burn through it. You in? Let’s go!
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In no particular order…
Xander Bogaerts
The glue that holds the Red Sox together (yes, the Red Sox are held together by glue), Bogaerts has been the best hitter, or at least the most productive. The BABIP won’t stay at .432, and quality of contact hasn’t been quite as good as it was last season, but it’s still quite early. Some of those singles will go away, but a few will be replaced by the doubles and homers, which haven’t appeared yet for Bogaerts.
Ultimately not much has changed here. He’s still a great hitter who isn’t long for a starting shortstop job, but that’s a problem for either next year, or if the Red Sox keep playing this badly, a few months from now.
Trevor Story
A friend of mine who doesn’t follow the Red Sox closely noticed Story’s lousy hitting numbers and asked me about him. Here’s what I said.
I’ll stick to that.
Bobby Dalbec
One of the worst hitters so far at an offense-first position, Dalbec is doing everything he can to force the Red Sox to call up Triston Casas. So far they haven’t bit, and Casas has slumped a tad at Triple-A, so perhaps the temptation is less. Either way, Dalbec needs to remember how to hit with some level of competency or the Red Sox will have to find someone, you, your cat, anyone, to replace him. This can not be allowed to continue.
Christian Vazquez
Anyone who expected anything out of Christian Vazquez’s bat this season was fooling themselves. The fact that Vazquez is significantly out-hitting Dalbec is, in a word, a problem.
Rafael Devers
AL MVP. Book it.
Christian Arroyo
The Red Sox have asked a lot of Arroyo. Play second base. Play first base. Play shortstop. Play third base. Now play right field. And don’t forget to hit. Ah ha! That’s the rub. This defensive versatility thing works great… if he hits even a little bit. But he’s not. Again, it’s early, and in this offensive environment Arroyo’s awful OPS of .553 isn’t as bad relative to the league as you might think. Still… it’s not great, Bob.
Enrique Hernandez
Speaking of not great, Bob, here’s Hernandez, currently the second worst center fielder in terms of both hitting and overall production in baseball. When you’re looking at reasons the Red Sox are losing so much, there’s all the specific stuff, like so-and-so didn’t get that save or knock in those runners, and that’s fine, but the real reason is guys like Hernandez. After last season, the Red Sox were counting on him to be a good player, not one of the worst in baseball. No, they got Jackie Bradley for that (I kid, I kid). Hernandez is on the short list of biggest reasons the Red Sox are in the hole they’re in and his continued ineptitude at the plate is one of the largest causes of concern among many.
Jackie Bradley Jr
Make no mistake, Jackie Bradley is a bad hitter. But wanna hear something? Bradley is hitting .195/.271/.287. That’s ‘I went away for a month and left a block of cheese on the counter and when I came home it had become sentient and unlocked the front door for me’ bad But!! It’s twice as good as he was last season in Milwaukee when adjusting for league context. So if you look at that line and think, wow, that can’t get any worse, well, you’re wrong.
Alex Verdugo
Along with Hernandez, Verdugo is a member in good standing of Team Disappointment. His .576 OPS would be at home on the back of any backup catcher’s baseball card. However, as has been pointed out here and elsewhere, he’s also been shockingly, painfully unlucky. According to StatCast, based on his quality of contact, Verdugo should be hitting somewhere in the vicinity of .270/.330/.440, about 200 points of OPS above his actual numbers. So, provided he doesn’t decide to start batting right-handed or upside down, his production should improve.
J.D. Martinez
One of the Group of Three players who are actually hitting like the baseball isn’t just a coagulation of sopping wet socks, Martinez currently owns a slugging percentage of exactly .500, a miracle somewhere in the neighborhood of discovering the Hope Diamond in your underwear drawer. This is probably JD’s last season in Boston but he’s going out like he came in: slugging.
Kevin Plawecki
Backup catchers’s don’t get full paragraphs, though Plawecki did invent the home run cart so there’s that.
Franchy Cordero
Defensively-challenged-left-fielder-turned-first-baseman Cordero has the second best on-base percentage of any Red Sox hitter with more than 10 plate appearances. That OPS? .348. *shivers*
Travis Shaw
I liked Travis “The Mayor of Ding Dong City” Shaw. His was a fun success story for a player who seemed more like a quad-A guy than any kind of above average starter. Sadly, time waits for nobody, and The Mayor’s time had come. Good news for him though: when the Red Sox win the World Series he’ll get some portion of a World Series share, which is pretty good for going 0-for-19.
Nathan Eovaldi
The home runs are concerning, but they’re the only things that are. I’m not necessarily sure I’d want to be the team to pay for Eovaldi’s mid-30s, but at the same time he’s turned into a magnificent pitcher, expertly weaving five pitches including an upper-90s fastball into a beautiful tapestry of outs. He gives you innings, and they’re typically very good innings. It’s just those homers. If things continue like this for Boston I’d expect Chaim Bloom to extract a pretty penny from some team for Eovaldi at the trade deadline, but if that happens I’ll be sorry to see him go.
Garrett Whitlock
Did you know Whitlock used to be on the Yankees? It’s true! And the Yankees left him unprotected in the Rule 5 draft? It’s true! As in, they lost him for absolutely nothing, and not only that, but they lost him to their biggest, bitterest rivals. Also true! It’s such a crazy story I’m not sure I’ll ever really wrap my head around it. Also, burying the lede here a bit, but it’s possible that Whitlock is the best pitcher on the Red Sox right now (yesterday’s start notwithstanding). Which reminds me, did you know the Yankees handed him over to the Red Sox for NOTHING?
Michael Wacha
I’m not sure Wacha is this good…actually, scratch that. Wacha isn’t this good. If you look at his numbers, there’s a lot that simply isn’t sustainable. But, the results so far can’t be rescinded, so the Red Sox get to bank those, even if he’s not going to be able to keep this up going forward.
Rich Hill
Rich Hill is an absolute joy to watch and I’m not going to be discussing sustainability when it comes to a 42 year old dude called Dick Mountain.
Tanner Houck
Houck’s refusal to get the vaccine blew the Red Sox pitching to smithereens in Toronto and probably cost them a game or even two. That said, he’s a good pitcher who can succeed in shorter outings from the rotation, but I still think he’s a better fit in a dual inning role out of the bullpen.
Nick Pivetta
He’s taken a hearty step backwards to start the season, but Pivetta’s best two starts have been his most recent, including shutting out the White Sox for six innings with eight strikeouts and no walks.
Austin Davis
A LOOGY in an age where LOOGYs can’t exist, Davis dominates lefties and gets lit up by righties. Both this season and last he’s been allowed to face roughly equal numbers of both, likely a function of the three batter rule that attempts to legislate pitchers like Davis out of existence. The results have been fine, somewhat surprisingly, but continuing to hand him the ball against righties is essentially asking to have your toes stepped on by people holding pianos. But what can you do in a LOOGY-less age? Other than not employ Austin Davis, I mean.
Matt Strahm
Strahm brings the moss. Beyond that, he’s a good relief pitcher. Fastball is fast, slider slides, and both are thrown for strikes. The numbers are good, the production is good, the outlook is good. Next.
Matt Barnes
In grade school I remember my mom telling me I’d get to go over to my friend Ricky’s house after school on Friday of next week. That next week was the longest of my life. That’s what it feels like while we wait for Barnes to figure it out. He’s going to get back to being the pitcher he was for the first half of last season soon, right? Now? How about now? How about now? How about now? OH MY GOSH How about now?
Hansel Robles
Robles is miscast as an important bullpen piece. He throws hard, but he gives up rockets. If you type “Cape Canaveral” into the search bar at Baseball Reference Robles’ page should come up. He does strike guys out, but have I mentioned the rockets? Oh, the rockets! He could be nicknamed The Spaceman. There’s a reason he got only a minor league deal this off-season. He shouldn’t see the mound unless the Red Sox are at least three and ideally 12 runs apart from their opponent.
Hirokazu Sawamura
I went from Robles’ Baseball Savant page to Sawamura’s and at first I thought my computer hadn’t reloaded the page. Anyway, here’s Sawamura’s.
No, darn it, sorry. That was Robles. I swear I’m not making this up. Here’s Sawamura’s page.
In the words of a great dane, woof. It’s not great to have two relievers who are blowout specialists but that’s where the Red Sox are right now.
Phillips Valdez
Valdez has an ERA that starts with a six so instead of analyzing him, let me tell you this. In 10 innings he’s walked four guys. Not great, but you know, not horrible, right? But that’s not quite the whole story. He’s also hit five guys. FIVE! He’s hit five guys! He’s only faced 45! That’s a 12 percent hit rate! That’s something Enrique Hernandez would be envious of.
John Schreiber
Rather than break down 4.1 innings of journeyman reliever performance, let’s pivot to this. Schreiber is from Wyandotte, Michigan. Wyandotte is on the Detroit River which separates the US from Canada. Directly across the river from Wyandotte is Fighting Island, Canada. Fighting Island was previously owned by a few different chemical companies that used the island as an industrial waste disposal center. Wasn’t that more interesting than the alternative?
Kutter Crawford
Supposedly a key member of the long relief, Crawford was lit up by the Tigers and Twins in successive appearances in April and hasn’t seem much of the mound since. He’s supposedly still back there, sitting, hoping, in the bullpen, possibly playing backgammon, waiting for another chance. But getting passed by the likes of Tyler Danish and John Schreiber of Wyandotte isn’t a great sign.
Tyler Danish
Danish has a friend back home named Taylor Coffee. He and Danish used to go out on the road and do stand up shows at open mic nights and college campuses under the moniker Coffee ‘n Danish. OK, none of that is true, but don’t you think it should be?
Ryan Brasier
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a pitcher look as disinterested and yet simultaneously disappointed with his performance coming off the mound as Brasier does. Doesn’t matter what just happened. The look of disappointment never melts away. It’s a unique skillset and one I think the Red Sox would be wise to use more frequently, especially if and when Danish and Schreiber turn into figurative or even literal pumpkins.
Jake Diekman
It’s not like we didn’t know what the Jake Diekman experience was. We knew he’d strike a ton of guys out. We knew he’d walk a ton of guys. Getting mad at Jake Diekman for walking a ton of guys is like getting mad at a roller coaster for going fast over the hill. It’s like getting mad at your cat for eating an entire pound of cheese that you left out on the counter. In the end, asking Diekman to close a close game out is not what a team with a healthy functioning bullpen should be doing. Take from that what you will.
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I keep reading about how the Red Sox have all these guys who concentrate on the analytics. The state of the bullpen kinda makes you long for the days when they employed guys to actually go out and watch other guys play baseball. I think they were called scouts.