Red Sox Strut: Catcher Christian Vazquez, LHP Drew Pomeranz
A weekly article series where we examine two players who deserve to strut their stuff for the Boston Red Sox. This week – Christian Vazquez, Drew Pomeranz.
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 rolling on a six-game winning streak highlighted by a pair of dramatic walk-off wins.
Even when the unfathomable happens, with Craig Kimbrel blowing a save in the same game where Chris Sale was shelled, the Red Sox still found a way to win. When this team is firing on all cylinders they are proving to be very difficult to beat.
The bats are heating up again, giving a number of hitters a fair case to Strut. The clutch hits have been vital to this winning streak, but Boston is also getting the long ball going. A lack of home runs has been the Achilles heel of this team all season, but so far in August they rank fourth in the majors with 11 homers in six games. The Red Sox still sit at the bottom of the American League in that category, but it’s no longer by a significant margin.
Position Player Candidates
Chris Young essentially was the Red Sox offense on Sunday. He crushed a pair of home runs over the left field wall and added a double to drive in five of the team’s six runs to seal a series sweep over the White Sox. He did little else in his three other appearances last week, yet it was enough to finish with a strong .364/.417/1.000 line for the week.
After getting a couple of games off to clear his head and focus on the mechanics of his swing, Andrew Benintendi returned to the lineup with a vengeance. The rookie hit a team-high .462 with a 1.457 OPS last week, including a home run, two doubles and three RBI. His base running blunders are becoming a concern, but he did steal three bases to give him an even dozen for the season.
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Eduardo Nunez hasn’t stopped hitting since joining the Red Sox. He’s hit safely in seven of his nine games since being acquired from the San Francisco Giants. Nunez has already doubled his home run total for the season with four since the trade. He went 11-for-28 (.393) at the plate last week with two of those home runs and a team-high nine RBI.
Teams look for a spark at this time of year to carry them through the stretch run. The Nunez trade has certainly been one for Boston, while the promotion of top prospect Rafael Devers has been another. The 20-year old hit .391 with a home run, three RBI and picked up his first career stolen base.
Mitch Moreland broke out of his second half slump in a big way last week, hitting .300 with a pair of homers and five RBI. The highlight of his week was a walk-off home run to cap an 11th inning rally against the White Sox. This was Boston’s eighth walk-off of the season and second in the span of three games.
Who had the first walk-off hit of the week for the Red Sox? Glad you asked, as we’re about to get to that.
Position Player who gets to Strut
As exciting as Moreland’s walk-off homer was, Christian Vazquez provided one earlier in the week that arguably gave the Red Sox their biggest win of the season.
It was bad enough that starter Chris Sale was hammered for a season-high seven runs by the Cleveland Indians. The Red Sox rallied back, only for lights-out closer Craig Kimbrel to suffer a rare blown save. Sometimes it’s just not your day, so there’s nothing to do but move on to the next game. This wasn’t one of those times, at least as far as Vazquez was concerned.
Boston started the rally with a one-out single by Devers in the ninth. Those efforts seemed to be on life support when Mitch Moreland swung and missed at strike three, but the catcher let the ball pass him to allow Moreland to reach first base safely. Instead of the game being over, the Red Sox were given another chance.
Big mistake. Vazquez made the Indians pay by blasting a sky scraping three-run shot to center off closer Cody Allen. The most unlikely of candidates, a defensive-minded catcher with only three career home runs entering the game, turned into a walk-off hero.
The 26-year old is starting to shed the reputation of being a catcher who is all glove, no bat. He recently put together a seven-game hit streak. He went 8-for-19 (.421) last week to raise his season average to .280 – a full 40 points above his previous career high.
Vazquez still isn’t hitting for much power, but he’s set career highs in doubles, triples, home runs, RBI, SLG and OPS. He’s even thrown in five steals, a notable total considering Vazquez had never swiped a bag entering this season.
A hefty batting average and a thrilling game-winning home run give Vazquez the honor to Strut this week.
Pitching Candidates
Eduardo Rodriguez had been a bit shaky since his return from the disabled list, but his latest outing showed promising signs. He picked up a quality start, going six innings and allowing only two runs on four hits and a pair of walks. Granted it came against the lowly White Sox, but Rodriguez sure looked more like the pitcher who owned a 2.77 ERA through his first 10 starts before hurting his knee in Baltimore.
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After he was nearly run out of town for his dismal performances, Doug Fister if finally settling down at the back end of the rotation. He earned the win in both of his starts last week, posting a 3.21 ERA and 1.07 WHIP. Fister struck out 12 and only walked two over 14 innings in those starts. He’ll certainly never be mistaken for a healthy David Price, but he’s proving to be a capable option to hold down the fort until the lefty returns.
Addison Reed‘s Red Sox tenure got off to a rocky start as he coughed up a home run to the first batter he faced since being acquired at the trade deadline. Since then he’s been as good as advertised, tossing 2 2/3 scoreless innings in his last three appearances. While Reed was acquired to be the new setup man, it’s clear Farrell intends to use him similar to how Cleveland uses Andrew Miller. If the heart of the order is coming up in the 7th inning of a tight game, that’s when we’ll see Reed.
The rest of the bullpen has been solid of late, aside from the hiccup from Kimbrel. Matt Barnes, Brandon Workman, Blaine Boyer, Heath Hembree and Fernando Abad combined for 11 2/3 scoreless innings of relief last week. With Joe Kelly being activated from the disabled list and Carson Smith starting a rehab assignment over the weekend, Boston’s bullpen is shaping up to be one of the team’s greatest strengths.
Pitcher who gets to Strut
Drew Pomeranz continues to be one of the most underrated players on this Red Sox team. Fans were furious when Dave Dombrowksi traded away the team’s top pitching prospect for Pomeranz, who underwhelmed with his performance down the stretch last season. After a few rough outings early in the season had those same critics howling for his removal from the rotation, Pomeranz has put those concerns to rest with an outstanding season.
His latest start came on Saturday, when Pomeranz limited the White Sox to a single run over 6 2/3 innings. He earned his 11th win of the season, tied for fifth in the league, while lowering his ERA to 3.36, which ranks eighth.
Pomeranz has now allowed three runs or less in 18 of his 22 starts this season. He’s given up one run or less in ten of those starts, including three of his last four.
One of the knocks against Pomeranz has been his inability to go deep into games – he’s lasted a full seven innings only once this season. In some ways this may be a blessing in disguise for a pitcher who clearly tired down the stretch last year. An overlooked explanation for his second half struggles was that Pomeranz had already surpassed his career-high workload before the Red Sox acquired him. Boston’s loaded bullpen allows them to feel comfortable letting Pomeranz average about six innings per start. At that pace they can get another dozen starts out of him while increasing his workload a reasonable 20 or so innings above last year’s career-high.
Next: Wakefield gives back to Little League
With Price’s health concerns and the regression of Rick Porcello, the re-emergence of Pomeranz has been a significant reason for this season’s success. He’s been the second best pitcher in the Red Sox rotation and the most recent example of this has earned him the right to Strut.