Red Sox Strut: Xander Bogaerts and Steven Wright

The weekly article series where we examine the two players who deserve to strut their stuff for the Boston Red Sox. This week — Xander Bogaerts and Steven Wright.

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.

Schedule-wise, it was a strange week for the Red Sox. They went on the road to the west coast to play just two games against a National League opponent, and then went to north mid-west to play a three game series against a horrible Minnesota Twins team. The end result was a record of 3-2 and an overall solid week for Boston. They scored a total of 33 runs resulting in an average of 6.6 runs per game. However, once again, their pitching was up-and-down.

POSITIONAL PLAYER: Xander Bogaerts

Some weeks, I really have to sit down and analyze the numbers, think back about the games and break down who truly deserves to Strut. This is not one of those weeks. Any Sox fan who is paying just the slightest bit of attention realizes what kind of streak and season overall that Xander Bogaerts is having.

Sure, the whole offense is still having a great season combined. David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia, who is the latest Red Sox hitter to have a long hitting streak come to an end (this time it was 16 games), had great weeks. But Bogaerts is on a whole other level at the moment. He is leading the league in virtually every major category for shortstops. The Walk Off’s Mark Townsend recently wrote about Bogaerts’ amazing season thus far and noted that “since April 20, the 23-year-old shortstop is hitting .389/.438/.556.”

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David Ortiz agrees that Xander is at the top of his game right now. This week, Bogaerts brought us more of the same. In four out of the five games, he had more than one hit. He was held hitless in just one game, and that was when Madison Bumgarner started for the Giants and out-dueled David Price to a 2-1 victory. Xander still finished with 12 total hits on the week including two games in a row with four hits. He finished the week with a .500 average and 11 RBI.

Bogaerts is proving he’s the real deal and is showing Red Sox Nation why the front office has deemed him untouchable in trade talks over the last few seasons. This is the guy that is going to lead the Sox lineup for years to come, both on the field and in the clubhouse. It’s been a pleasure watching him so far, and I’m looking forward to more weeks like the one we just witnessed. But for now…you can Strut up and down Yawkey Way, Mr. Bogaerts!

PITCHER: Steven Wright

Pitching is clearly still the Achilles heel for the Red Sox. They didn’t let up a ton of runs (17 total), but they still aren’t getting the performances they need when it counts. John Farrell is still going with just four starters for the time-being until they can figure out what to do with the Clay Buchholz/Joe Kelly/unnamed up-and-comer to be determined slot in the rotation.

This week, it was Rick Porcello who had the chance to start twice. In both starts, Porcello was just OK. He went six innings in the first start and allowed three runs on five hits and one walk, and then was able to get through seven innings in his second go at it in Minnesota allowing just one earned run with two walks. Porcello also sat down 11 batters by way of the K. He gave his team a chance to win, but he still doesn’t look as solid as he was in the first month of the season.

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Eduardo Rodriguez’ number was called on Saturday against the Twins, and he still doesn’t look to be at the level he was at last season. While his velocity has increased in every start since he returned from the knee injury, his lack of control is concerning. And because of that lack of control, he’s not finding his way late into games. On Saturday, E-Rod pitched only 4.2 innings while giving up four runs on six hits and four walks. He also gave up another homerun, something that has seriously plagued him this year. Rodriguez needs to get better if Boston is going to be able to rely on him late in the season.

The bullpen looked decent this week. Matt Barnes had been starting to look great in his middle-of –the-game role, but he did let up the game-winning walk-off homer on Sunday against the Twins. Koji Uehara had a great week out of the bullpen which is good to see, as did Junichi Tazawa. Even Clay Buchholz looked pretty good. Still, none of the relief guys led the way.

So this means that it once again comes down to David Price and Steven Wright…the on-paper ace of the staff versus that actual ace of the staff. Yup…that’s right (or Wright if I wanted to get real cute here), a knuckleballer who basically came out of nowhere has been the most successful starter of Boston’s staff in 2016. And once again, he owned this week and gets to Strut.

Price pitched well in San Francisco. He pitched an eight inning complete game only giving up two runs and three hits, but it wasn’t good enough. They lost the game to the Giants 2-1. If David Price is truly the best pitcher on the team and is deserving of the enormous contract he has been given by Dave Dombrowski and John Henry, then he needs to find a way to win games like this and not give up game-winning homeruns.

Next: Could Travis Shaw be dealt at the deadline?

Steven Wright, on the other hand, just gets it done. He works quickly and effectively. Wright went 7.1 innings and gave up just one run on seven hits. He also struck out six batters. Steven Wright has been amazing so far in 2016 and is an awesome story. Can he keep it up? No one can be sure and everyone is skeptical, but for now he can Strut!

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