Red Sox Strut: Xander Bogaerts, Brian Johnson are stars of the week
The weekly article series where we examine two players who deserve to strut their stuff for the Boston Red Sox. This week – Xander Bogaerts, Brian Johnson.
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 Boston Red Sox are coming off an impressive homestand in which they swept the Texas Rangers and took the first two games against the Seattle Mariners.
Sunday’s loss snapped a season-long six-game win streak, a stretch that vaulted them over the spiraling Baltimore Orioles for second place in the division. Boston enters the day three games behind the New York Yankees in the AL East.
With the Red Sox playing as well as they have all season there are plenty of candidates to Strut this week, yet only one hitter and one pitcher can walk away with the honor.
Position Player Candidates
Christian Vazquez is making a compelling case for not only overtaking Sandy Leon as the primary catcher, but also for stealing his award for the best out of nowhere performance. The Sandyman shocked us all with a breakout season in 2016, while Vazquez is following suit this year. Given his track record as a lineup liability, we keep expecting a slump to come yet Vazquez won’t stop hitting. He went 4-for-7 (.571) with a double this week and is now hitting .350 for the season.
Mitch Moreland went 8-for-17 (.471) with a .994 OPS last week. The only downside to his performance at the plate was that none of those hits went for extra bases. How does a guy affectionately referred to as Mitchy Two Bags not crank out at least one double?
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This past week included the major league debut of Sam Travis, who appears to be Moreland’s platoon partner at first base for the time being. Travis beat out an infield single for his first career hit in his second trip to the plate. He would later add another base hit in his impressive debut and is 2-for-5 in his brief big league career.
The numbers for Deven Marrero won’t jump off the page, yet a .278 average last week for a guy that was supposed to be a black hole at the bottom of the lineup is nothing to scoff at. Marrero also blasted his first home run of the season – which was only the second of his career.
Dustin Pedroia continues to be a steady presence near the top of the lineup. He went 6-for-17 (.353) with three walks and a pair of doubles over the last five games. The veteran second baseman was removed early from a game last week with soreness in the left knee that cost him a few games last month and he ended up sitting out the next game. Pedroia returned to the lineup on Saturday and has racked up three hits over his last two games, showing his knee is fine.
Position Player who gets to Strut
The top hitter from this past week was Xander Bogaerts, who led the team with 10 hits while batting .400 over the last six games.
Bogaerts collected a pair of doubles to give him 11 for the season, which gives him the third most on the team and ties him for 15th in the league.
After all the concern about how his power has evaporated this season, Bogaerts finally delivered his first home run of the season by crushing a line drive into the first row of the Green Monster seats.
X gon’ give it to ya. pic.twitter.com/lojQp4eUGH
— MLB (@MLB) May 26, 2017
He probably won’t come close to the career-high 21 home runs he smashed last season, but his bat still has some pop in it. Bogaerts is still piling up extra-base hits and his .331 average is tied for fourth in the league.
Pitching Candidates
Eduardo Rodriguez moved to 4-1 on the season by tossing six shutout innings against the Mariners over the weekend. He now owns a 2.77 ERA that puts him on the verge of breaking into the top-10 in the league, solidifying the 24-year old as a legitimate No. 2 starter in a rotation that has been without David Price all season and has seen Rick Porcello struggle.
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He still isn’t going deep into games, but the latest outing for Drew Pomeranz was promising. The lefty held the Rangers to two runs over six innings and tied a career-high with 11 strikeouts.
As impressive as the start by Pomeranz was, the end of the game was even better. Craig Kimbrel slammed the door on the victory by punching out four batters in the ninth inning, a rare accomplishment that was only made possible by an umpire’s blunder. Kimbrel’s final strikeout gave the Red Sox pitching staff 20 for the game, tying an MLB record for a nine-inning game.
Matt Barnes and Joe Kelly have done solid work setting up for Kimbrel of late. Neither allowed a run last week over a combined 4 2/3 innings that included six strikeouts and no walks.
It almost seems like a prerequisite to at least give Chris Sale some consideration given how dominant he’s been this season. Somehow allowing three earned runs and only striking out six seems like a disappointment. That would be a good week for many pitchers, but for one with Sale’s expectations it’s not enough to Strut.
Pitcher who gets to Strut
For the first time in his major league career, Brian Johnson has earned the right to Strut.
Making only the third start of his career and first at Fenway Park, Johnson tossed a complete game shutout to beat the Mariners. He allowed only five hits, no walks and struck out eight.
Johnson only had two prior big league starts on his resume, one of which came last month and the other in 2015. He failed to go deeper than five innings and gave up four earned runs in each of those starts.
This time Johnson seemed to be a completely different pitcher. He actually looked like a pitcher who belonged in the big leagues, like the pitcher who has been brilliant for Triple-A Pawtucket this year.
Boston has struggled to fill the back end of an injury depleted rotation, turning to fringe options such as Kyle Kendrick and Hector Velazquez with disastrous results. Johnson’s first start for the Red Sox this season threatened to put him in that same reject pile, yet now his outlook looks considerably better.
Next: Grading the first 50 Red Sox games
Price’s return means there’s no immediate need for Johnson in the rotation, but you can be sure that he’ll be the first option the team calls up if they need another spot starter.