Red Sox Strut: Third baseman Rafael Devers, RHP Rick Porcello
A weekly article series where we examine two players who deserve to strut their stuff for the Boston Red Sox. This week – Rafael Devers, Rick Porcello.
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 Red Sox wrapped up a successful six-game homestand by taking two out of three against the New York Yankees over the weekend. They also swept a short two-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals after beginning the week by dropping a makeup game against the Cleveland Indians.
The 4-2 record during this stretch at Fenway Park leaves the Red Sox with a fairly comfortable five game lead in the AL East as we head toward the tail end of August. Boston is an AL-best 40-22 at home this season and now trail the Houston Astros by only four games in the loss column for the league’s top spot.
Let’s review the candidates who helped the Red Sox win the week.
Position Player Candidates
Mitch Moreland went 7-for-15 (.467) last week to lead the team in batting average. Mitchy Two-Bags added a pair of doubles, bringing his season total to 27. The days of Moreland leading the league in that category are far behind us, but he has equaled his career high and sits tied for 20th in the league.
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Christian Vazquez continues to swing a hot stick, going 4-for-9 (.444) over the three games he played in last week. That raises his batting average in the month of August to a scorching .387. For the season he’s hitting .286, nearly 60 points above last year’s average. Vazquez also added his third home run and sixth steal of the season.
Jackie Bradley was 6-for-18 (.333) and led the team with eight RBI. His triple in the bottom of the second inning on Sunday drove in two of those runs, which proved to be the game winners against the Yankees.
Xander Bogaerts is showing signs of pulling out of his second-half slump. He went 7-for-22 (.318) with a pair of doubles. He added a home run to lead off the bottom of the 9th against Cardinals closer Trevor Rosenthal to pull the Red Sox to within one run. Mookie Betts would end the game later that inning with a walk-off double, but Boston doesn’t extend the game to get to him without the clutch homer from Bogaerts.
Position Player who gets to Strut
He’s only 20 years old with a mere 21 games under his belt at the major league level, yet Rafael Devers may already be the best third baseman in franchise history. Ok, not quite, but he’s well on his way to putting his name in the conversation by doing things few Red Sox hitters have ever done.
Devers remained hot this week with a 9-for-22 (.409) performance. Four of those hits were home runs, including a pair against the Yankees. Dating back to the series in the Bronx earlier this month, Devers hit a home run in three consecutive games against the Yankees. The last player to do that against the Yankees before turning 21 years old was Babe Ruth in 1915.
.@Rafael_Devers hits one into the Monster Seats to give the @RedSox an early lead over the @Yankees. #MLBNShowcase pic.twitter.com/1XgIb8iPi1
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) August 18, 2017
You may recall the homer he blasted off of a 102 mph fastball from Aroldis Chapman in Yankee Stadium. His home runs this week weren’t quite as dramatic, but it goes to show the rookie isn’t shying away from Boston’s biggest rival.
Devers is the only hitter under the age of 21 to ever smash eight home runs in their first 20 major league games. He already has 28 hits in 21 games.
The rookie also started the first 5-4-3 triple play of his career against the St. Louis Cardinals this week. Granted it was the lead-footed Yadier Molina chugging along toward first base on a routine grounder, but Devers showed great footwork to tag the bag behind him and fire the ball over to second.
Devers is proving to be the spark plug the Red Sox needed to vault them to the top of the AL East.
Pitching Candidates
Another week of Craig Kimbrel doing Craig Kimbrel things. All he did this week was toss three scoreless innings without allowing a base runner, while striking out seven batters. He earned his fifth win of the season in the game against St. Louis last week that ended on the Betts walk-off. Two nights later he notched his 29th save against the Yankees. Kimbrel owns a 2.9 WAR this season, which trails only 11 pitchers in the league. Not closers, not relievers – pitchers. Every pitcher ahead of him is a starter who has logged about two or three times the number of innings that Kimbrel has.
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Among Red Sox relievers who aren’t named Kimbrel, nobody has been better than Brandon Workman since he rejoined the team in mid-July. The right-hander owns a 1.40 ERA and 0.97 WHIP over 25 2/3 innings this season. He can thrive in any role out of the bullpen in any inning he’s called upon, while even proving capable of lasting multiple innings when necessary. The Red Sox kicked the tires on a number of relievers before the trade deadline, yet Workman is an internal option giving the bullpen as much of a boost as any pitcher available could have.
As for relievers the Red Sox did trade for, Addison Reed is finally starting to settle in with his new team. He threw 3 2/3 scoreless innings of relief last week, allowing only one hit and one walk along the way, while striking out five. A couple more weeks like that and his ERA during his time in Boston may drop from “abysmal” to “not too shabby.”
Drew Pomeranz was well on his way toward strutting his stuff last week until back spasms forced him out of his last start in the fourth inning. Prior to his early exit, the lefty had gone 3 1/3 scoreless innings. Boston would go on to win the game, despite the bullpen nearly blowing it, but Pomeranz wouldn’t stick around long enough to get credit for it. The good news is that he remains optimistic about his chances to make his next start on Wednesday.
Pitcher who gets to Strut
Rick Porcello is finally rounding back into form following a dismal first half of the season. He’s still a far cry from last year’s Cy Young level, but the 3.77 ERA that Porcello has posted since the break is more in line with what we should expect.
The right-hander won both of his starts last week. He gave up three runs over seven innings to defeat the Cardinals on Tuesday. The best part about that outing is that he kept the ball in the park – only the eighth time in 26 starts that Porcello hasn’t allowed at least one home run.
Five days later he beat the Yankees, holding New York’s powerful lineup to only one run over six innings. He did cough up a homer for that lone run, but solo shots aren’t going to be his downfall. It’s the multi-run homers that will doom a pitcher, which Porcello has managed to avoid in his last few starts.
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Porcello has won each of his last four starts, in stark contracts to losing the previous four in July. Porcello had gone nearly six weeks between wins, entering August with a measly four this season. He has since doubled that total and has a reasonable shot at cracking double-digits. Fighting his way back to the .500 mark can’t be ruled out if he can keep this momentum going.