Red Sox Strut: Jackie Bradley, Matt Barnes earn top honors this week
The weekly article series where we examine two players who deserve to strut their stuff for the Boston Red Sox. This week – Jackie Bradley, Matt Barnes.
If you want 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 performance of the Boston Red Sox continues to be maddeningly inconsistent.
Boston started their latest road trip by taking both games of a short series in St. Louis against a Cardinals team that was leading the NL Central at the time. While one would expect to build some momentum off of that, the Red Sox instead followed by dropping three out of four games in Oakland to help the A’s climb out of the basement of the AL West.
If there’s a silver lining to the week it’s that the Red Sox ended the trip by breaking out the bats for an impressive 12-3 victory on Sunday to push them back above the .500 mark. Now they return home for six games at Fenway Park this week where they can try to make up some more ground in the division.
The team’s performance overall may have been inconsistent, but there were still some players that put up the type of numbers this week worthy of consideration to Strut.
Position Player Candidates
Hanley Ramirez was essentially a non-factor in the two games in St. Louis. The Red Sox still aren’t ready to let him try playing first base again, which limited him to only a pinch-hit appearance in each of the games against the Cardinals. He failed to deliver in both cases. However, he came through with at least one hit in each of the four games in Oakland, including a three-hit performance on Sunday. He hit .368 with a homer and four RBI over the past week.
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There must be something about Oakland that gets Mitch Moreland going at the plate, as he blasted three home runs in the series against the A’s. He now has 14 career home runs hitting in the Oakland Coliseum, which is more than he’s hit in any other visiting ballpark. Moreland led the team in home runs and RBI this week, but also hit a meager .227 over 22 at-bats.
Outfielder Chris Young found his way into the lineup four times last week, going 4-for-9 (.444) at the plate. That gave him the highest batting average on the team among Red Sox players that appeared in more than one game. A double was the only extra-base hit he produced in that span and he drove in only two runs, so it was a good performance but not quite enough to Strut.
Position Player who gets to Strut
There aren’t many hitters that are more streaky than Jackie Bradley and it appears that he’s finally pulling out of his season long slump. Bradley has multi-hit games in four of his last seven appearances to lift his batting average back above the Mendoza Line.
Bradley hit an impressive .316/.435/.684 last week. He homered twice and added a double while driving in four runs and posting a team-high 1.119 OPS.
Even when Bradley doesn’t have it going at the plate he can still be relied on to deliver outstanding defense in center field. Last week was no different. The highlight of the week came in the 9th inning of Friday night’s game in Oakland. Ryon Healy threatened to end it with a walk-off, only for Bradley to make an amazing leap to rob him of a home run.
Jackie Bradley Jr. with an insane, game-saving catch topped only by his ho-hum reaction. pic.twitter.com/pfmxvny22M
— Mike Cole (@MikeColeNESN) May 20, 2017
The Red Sox would go on to lose the game in extra-innings, yet that takes nothing away from the outstanding play made by Bradley.
Pitching Candidates
Craig Kimbrel continues to do Craig Kimbrel things, striking out three over three scoreless innings last week. He now owns a 0.92 ERA and his WHIP is down to 0.41 – ridiculous numbers for any pitcher at this point in the season.
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Make it eight consecutive starts with double-digit strikeouts for Chris Sale, tying his own record that he shares with Red Sox legend Pedro Martinez. Sale allowed two runs on seven hits but had to settle for a no-decision in a game that Boston would lose in extra-innings.
Fernando Abad tossed three scoreless innings this week, extending his scoreless streak for the month of May to eight innings. Is Abad actually a trusted arm in the bullpen now? His most recent appearance came in mop duty in a loss to Oakland, but prior to that he provided two solid innings to earn the win in a 13-inning affair in St. Louis. It was the first time all season that Abad has logged more than one inning in a game and he threw a season-high 32 pitches.
Robby Scott totaled only one inning over two appearances in the St. Louis series and hasn’t been used since. He allowed one base runner and no runs, so he pitched great but didn’t receive enough of a workload to Strut this week. Just wanted to point out that Scott now owns a 0.87 ERA and 0.68 WHIP. He’s basically been the left-handed version of Kimbrel only with fewer strikeouts. He’s turning into a lefty specialist that often only faces a batter or two, but it’s a role he’s thriving in.
Pitcher who gets to Strut
One pitcher who hasn’t thrived in their bullpen role is setup man Matt Barnes, although he’s showing signs of turning things around.
Barnes tossed 3 1/3 scoreless innings, handling the heaviest workload of any Red Sox reliever last week. He allowed only two hits to go along with six strikeouts. More importantly, he didn’t walk a batter after issuing 10 free passes over his previous 15 1/3 innings this season.
While his performance is promising, it must be noted that Barnes wasn’t used in high leverage situations. He was prepared to protect a four-run lead in the ninth inning on Sunday, only for Boston’s bats to score five more runs in the top of the inning to make his job significantly easier. Prior to that he was used to mop up the final two innings of an 8-3 loss. His only other appearance of the week did come in a tight game, although he only faced one batter and it was in the seventh inning.
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With Boston’s primary eighth inning options sidelined all season by injury, manager John Farrell turned to Barnes to lock down that spot. He seems to have lost the setup role after his ERA inflated to 4.70 earlier this month, but a few solid appearances since then will go a long way toward Barnes gaining that trust back.