Red Sox Strut: Hanley Ramirez and Brad Ziegler

The weekly article series where we examine the two players who deserve to strut their stuff for the Boston Red Sox. This week — Hanley Ramirez and Brad Ziegler.

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.

The Red Sox Strut took the week off last week due to the All-Star break, but we’re back with our first edition of the “second half” of the year. With nine games being played in the last ten days, there was a lot to take in and digest. Boston won five of their first six games after the break, but then lost a couple winnable ones over the course of the weekend against the Twins. The same issues continue the plague the Sox as they chug along and chase the Orioles who are 1.5 games ahead in the AL East – the starting pitching is woefully inconsistent and the bullpen looks overworked. Yet, the offense has the ability to just go off and put a large number of runs up on any given night. So let’s take a look at the best performers of the week on both sides of the ball.

POSITIONAL PLAYER: Hanley Ramirez

Somewhere, Ben Cherington is sitting by a pool, sipping on a cool glass of lemonade and watching the Red Sox while shaking his head in disbelief. When he signed Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez heading into the 2015 season, they were largely regarded as two of the better free agents on the market. The hope was that they would help the offense become elite and offset one of the weaker pitching staffs that the Sox had put together in some time. We all know the end result – one was too fat, the other played the entire season out of position before an injury put him on the bench for the remainder of the season and the team finished in last place.

Fast forward to this season, and Sandoval has been out of the picture after season-ending surgery. Meanwhile, Ramirez has gotten very comfortable back in the infield at first base. The position isn’t as active as his primary position from early in his career at shortstop which helps out the thirty-two year old who isn’t that interested in bending over anymore. Really though, Hanley has come into his own and found a role on this team. He’s thriving in the field which has led to more confidence and a very nice run at the plate as of late.

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For the first time this season, Hanley has earned the Strut honors. The dude has been on a tear this week. He struggled in New York only managing one hit in the series, but that would change when Boston returned to Fenway Park to play the Giants. He went 4-for-7 in the short two-game series including a game on Wednesday night in which he blasted three, two-run homeruns. After going hitless in the next couple games against Minnesota, Ramirez got back on track on Saturday going 1-for-3 with a three-run shot. He then added yet another key three-run homer on Sunday to help the Red Sox split the series with the Twins. So that’s five homeruns in five games.

Granted, Hanley’s average wasn’t incredible over the last ten games, and there were some other guys that played very well including veteran Strutter Mookie Betts, his outfield partner in crime Jackie Bradley Jr. amongst others. But the headlines and the fireworks belonged to Ramirez this week.

This is the guy that Boston was looking for last season. I truly believe that the move to first base and his being more involved in the field has reenergized him. If this is what we can expect going forward in 2016 heading into the last couple years of his contract in which it is has been assumed he’ll be taking the role of the DH with David Ortiz departing, then I’ll take it. No one saw this coming, and now the man is Strutting his way into the last week of July.

PITCHER: Brad Ziegler

It’s a whole new look for the Strut. We had a new Strutter on the offensive side, and the victor from the pitching staff is a fresh face as well. It’s been a wild ten games from the mound for Boston. The starting pitching has been up-and-down all season, including their supposed ace in David Price.

Price just hasn’t had it. After improving in the month of June, Price started to go a bit south just before the All-Star break and has continued that decline in his two starts since. He got smashed around by the Yankees in a game that could have really destroyed NY’s confidence if Boston managed to win and sweep the series. Price gave up eleven hits and three runs in just 5.2 innings. One thing that he’s been great with all season is racking up strikeouts even in losing efforts, but he only had one in New York.

Then it was like déjà-vu on Saturday night when the pathetic Twin chased Price from the game after just 5.2 innings and eleven hits once again. This time he gave up five runs though and ended up with a no-decision. No excused here – he HAS to be better.

We saw the return of Eduardo Rodriguez over the last week as well. After practically falling apart and being punished with a trip to the Minors, E-Rod returned and looked pretty solid. He earned a victory over the Yankees after only allowing just one run, and then only gave up two runs to the Twins despite getting a check mark in the L column. This is a promising turn-around for Rodriguez, but not Strut-worthy.

The recently acquired lefty Drew Pomeranz got his first start for the Sox on Thursday against a familiar foe for him in the Giants. Maybe the familiarity backfired, or perhaps he was bit jittery after the trade, but this did not look like the performance of the savior of Boston’s pitching problems. He let up five runs on eight hits and was chased from the game after just three innings.

Now that brings us to the “stoppers” – Steven Wright and Rick Porcello. Both of these guys have been extremely solid all season and have saved the collected hides of the rotation and the entire team. They each won both of their starts and went deep enough in the games to not put a ton of pressure on the already taxed bullpen. Wright went eight innings and only allowed one run on Thursday night, while Porcello shut out the Giants and gathered eight K’s on Sunday.

But this week belongs to a whole new face – new to the Strut and new to the team as well. I’m of course talking about reliever Brad Ziegler. Ziegler was acquired for two minor-leaguers from the Diamondbacks and was added to give the bullpen some depth especially with the injury to Craig Kimbrel. Dave Dombrowski and John Farrell didn’t know at the time that Koji Uehara would head to the DL as well. Ziegler has been absolutely essential over the course of the last week-plus.

He’s pitched five scoreless innings, some in big spots, especially on Sunday when he earned his first save in Sox uniform and squelched any hope that Minnesota may have had for a comeback. Ziegler sat down two batters by way of the K, his fourth strikeout in the last two days. It sounds dramatic, but it really is tough to think about what the team and the bullpen would look like without his presence over the last week. According to Rob Bradford, John Farrell called him a “godsend”. Well guess what? That godsend is Strutting all over Fenway in his new uniform. Hopefully, Uehara and Kimbrel can return to their old forms, but until then Ziegler will need to continue his masterful run.