Red Sox Strut 2016: Week 4

The weekly article series where we examine the two players who deserve to strut their stuff for the Boston Red Sox. This week — Jackie Bradley, Jr. and Rick Porcello.

Now, to fully understand what the Red Sox Strut is, it means to have reason to walk with a confident, proud air around you. Some people mistake it for vanity, arrogance, or being pompous. This incorrect assumption is not what we mean. The Strut is about knowing that your deeds showed off your amazing skills to the baseball-loving public.

POSITION PLAYER: The JBJ Strut

The Red Sox took advantage of a stretch with a weak spot in their schedule to go 6-1 in their last seven games. Boston scored 42 runs during that same stretch – good enough for a 6 runs per game pace. That would certainly lead one to believe that there were plenty of candidates to be recognized in this edition of the Strut. Indeed, there were a good deal of contributors –

David Ortiz had a decent week and came back energized after sitting for the two games in Atlanta. He hit two homeruns in the first two games against the Yankees over the weekend including a game winner in the eighth inning off of Dellin Betances on Friday night.

Hanley Ramirez bounced back a bit after a slow week last week to bring his average back to .284.

Truly, the whole team beat up on Atlanta in a couple of the games in the middle of the week with Dustin Pedroia, Travis Shaw, Xander Bogaerts and Brock Holt all coming up with big hits and big moments.

Even during a week like this where the Sox seemed to be rolling, there was one member of the lineup that clearly stood out amongst the rest. That man was Jackie Bradley Jr. If you weren’t paying attention earlier in the week, you certainly were by the end of the week. JBJ had at least one hit in all seven games of the week, was responsible for the only run in a 1-0 victory over the Braves on Monday which was a solo homer and put his speed to use with three big RBI triples over the course of the week.

Jackie went 10-for-27 in these seven games – an average of .370 and totaled 9 RBI out of the 42 runs scored by the team. He really started catching fire when NY came to town on Friday evening going 1-for-3 with two RBI on Friday and 3-for-3 with three RBI, two runs scored and two awesome RBI triples.

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He’s playing great in the field as well, but if Bradley can keep up this run at the plate, which looks very similar to the way he closed things out in 2015, he can be a major boost to the whole Sox lineup. While it seems that this may have come out of nowhere from JBJ, WEEI’s Rob Bradford noted on his Twitter account that Bradley actually had a very successful month of April.

It’s nice to see a new face in the fold getting to Strut his stuff for Boston, and if we have a chance to revisit Jackie in the next few weeks in this column, then chances are that things are going pretty well for this team.

PITCHER: Rick Porcello

Although the Red Sox have clearly been on nice streak, the pitching still isn’t quite at the level that would make most Sox fans comfortable. They were decent in the middle of the week against a bad hitting lineup in Atlanta, but with Eduardo Rodriguez and Joe Kelly on the DL, Boston is still looking to shore up their rotation.

Henry Owens got the call to come up from Pawtucket to replace Kelly and he was just average. He struggled on Sunday night in Houston but was decent against New York on Friday. Steven Wright, who had the Strutting honors last week, had another very good start in a victory over the Braves but it wasn’t enough to get to strut again. Clay Buchholz was on the mound for the one loss of the week, and it was more of the same – decent for a couple innings, a couple mistake pitches with men on base and less than stellar results.

Overall, the bullpen has been performing and doing their job. Heath Hembree has emerged as a major factor and provided some big innings of relief to save the rest of the bullpen.

David Price was able to get another notch in the W column against Atlanta. Although he did load up the bases and got into a couple jams, he finished the game with eight full innings pitched giving up just two runs on six hits. He also gathered up 14 strikeouts which was a career high.

Still, despite Price’s big time performance over the Braves, Rick Porcello has earned the right to strut and continued his case to be the most improved pitcher in the AL this season. Porcello had a great week with two starts. He was the winner in a 1-0 battle over Atlanta going 6.-1 innings with four hits, no runs, two walks and six strikeouts. Then he returned to face the Yanks on Saturday night, and again did not let up a run. He was able to get through seven strong innings giving up just five hits with one walk and another six strikeouts.

Next: Top 5 moments of the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry

You just can’t argue with thirteen total shut-out innings over two starts. If David Price can get back to that top-of-the-rotation ace status and Porcello keeps this up, the rotation woes may be over. Porcello is now 5-0 with an ERA of 2.76…certainly Strut worthy!