Red Sox: Three up, three down from May
We’re two months into the 2018 season, and some members of the Red Sox have stood out. Who’s hot, and who’s not, after May’s results?
June is here, which means we’ve officially reached the point at which team executives around the league begin assessing what they have to work with for 2018. Contenders will look to find ways to put themselves over the top. The pretenders will take honest looks at what they can afford to part with and what they can get for it, and begin preparing for 2019. For both groups, the beginning of this process always means that some players are about to lose their jobs.
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When it comes to contenders like the Red Sox, players who aren’t performing up to a certain level are going to be left behind. At 40-19, Boston has the most wins, if not the best winning percentage, in baseball. Though they recently dropped two of three games to the Houston Astros, they will almost certainly be playing baseball in October. Harsh though it may sometimes seem, players who aren’t contributing to that goal will either see their roles changed or decreased, or be cut from the team entirely. Sadly, we’ve already seen this process take it’s first victim; Hanley Ramirez, missed though he certainly is, simply wasn’t pulling his weight and was preventing players who were, such as Mitch Moreland, from getting regular playing time.
As we enter the long, hot grind of summer, who else may we see fall by the wayside? Three players have recently put themselves in danger of losing playing time, while three others have proven themselves invaluable after the first three months.
Up: Andrew Benintendi
Andrew Benintendi had a tough April. He began to show signs of life toward the end of it and finished with a respectable .272 batting average for the month, but he was never really quite right. He hit just a single home run and couldn’t really seem to get going consistently.
That all changed around the second week of May, when Benintendi’s batting average began to rise and didn’t stop. It began during a May 8 loss to the New York Yankees, the first of a nine game hitting streak. From that point through the end of the month, Benny notched nine multi-hit games, including five three-hit games, and launched six home runs. His batting average for May was a monstrous .349, the third-best on the team for the month.
It may be that Benintendi likes the hot weather. In general, players tend to find their strides after April, as the last of the frost melts away. Perhaps he worked out some mechanical kink in his swing. Maybe it’s both. What we can be sure of is that this version of Benintendi is more akin to his true nature as a batter than the Benintendi we saw in April. He’s a bit streaky, but has more good streaks than bad ones. While he probably won’t hit .349 each month, we should expect him to at least be within striking distance of .300. And while his power isn’t jaw-dropping, Benny Biceps has enough muscle to do his share of damage.
Undoubtedly, the Red Sox will need to see more of this Benintendi than the April one going forward. Without him, Mookie Betts loses a lot of the protection behind him atop the order, and the Sox lose perhaps their best leadoff alternative to Betts. Right now, we’re certainly seeing Benintendi recapture all of the potential we saw from him last year.
Up: Steven Wright
Steven Wright was away from baseball for a long time. A knee injury and a suspension kept him out for over a year. Because of that, and probably because we’d only really seen him at the height of his powers for about a season, it seemed, prior to his return, as though some people forgot just how good he really was when healthy. When it comes to knuckleballers, people tend to remember more of the bad than the good, at least in the short term. Tim Wakefield had some really ugly moments on the mound; yet, over the course of his career, he was incredibly valuable to the Red Sox and ended he tenure near the top of many of the team’s all-time statistical lists.
Like Wakefield, Wright’s less-than-stellar moments somehow seem to stand out more than his moments of brilliance. And yet, again like Wakefield, Wright has displayed more of the latter than the former. Before his 2017 injury, Wright was one of the best pitchers in baseball. He was a Cy Young contender for much of the campaign, until an injury suffered while running the bases threw him off course.
Since his return to the Red Sox, this time as a member of the bullpen, Wright has been nothing short of dominant. Some believe he’s earned a spot in the rotation, particularly because of the struggles of one of it’s current members (we’ll get to him later). The Sox, however, seem adamant about leaving him in the bullpen, and its hard to argue with that decision. Wright ability as a reliever, and specifically as a long reliever, is invaluable, and he’s historically been more effective out of the pen than in the rotation, if only slightly.
Right now, however, his numbers speak for themselves. In 16 innings of work, he’s 1-0 with 14 strikeouts, a 1.19 WHIP, and a sparkling 2.25 ERA. He’s thriving in the bullpen and has given the team some critical innings of quality relief work. He might still make it back to the rotation at some point this season. The decision makers could change their minds, or circumstances could force a switch. For the moment, however, it’s probably best to not fix something that isn’t broken.
Up: J.D. Martinez
Eduardo Rodriguez was a candidate for this spot, thanks to his strong work in May. However, what J.D. Martinez has meant to this team can’t be ignored, and that makes him a riser for the second month in a row. Martinez’s prowess with a bat in his hands hasn’t been lost on anyone who even casually follows baseball. What makes him a riser after May is how crucial he has become to the team’s success, particularly with Betts sidelined for a short period.
Martinez hit well in April, to the tune of five home runs, 22 RBI, and a .352 average. In May, however, he proved he was more than just a great hitter; he proved himself to be a force of nature.
In the season’s second full month, Martinez went absolutely bananas at the plate. He totaled a .299 batting average, 13 home runs, and 25 RBI. It often seemed like he and Betts were playing their own private game of HORSE; one would hit a bomb (or sometimes two) and then wait to see if the other could match it. Martinez has given the Red Sox a fearsome presence in the middle of the order, something they missed last season without David Ortiz. While Martinez isn’t the kind of leader Ortiz was, at least not yet, so far he’s every bit the power hitter.
What’s more, if Betts had gone down for this extended time and the Sox had not had Martinez, they might have floundered badly. Instead, they’re playing close games with the defending champions and keeping pace with the slugging Yankees. Boston has another player who can be cosistently relied upon to drive in runs, and the weight is off Mookie’s shoulders. That’s made him play better and more comfortably, and seems to have instilled a confidence in the team as a whole. The Red Sox don’t fear any opponent, and Martinez is largely to thank for that.
Down: Drew Pomeranz
After an exceptional 2017 campaign, Pomeranz entered the season poised to be the third head of Boston’s monster rotation, behind David Price and Chris Sale. Instead, he’s done just about everything he can to lose his rotation spot. If Wright were to replace anyone, right now it would be Pomeranz.
The veteran lefty has looked far more like the 2016 Pomeranz who disappointed in a half season with Boston than the 2017 Pomeranz who surprised and delighted. True, he entered the season coming off and injury and therefore didn’t really have a Spring Training, but the rust should be off by now. At times, he’ll show flashes of his old self, but then his old-old self will reappear and let up a home run. He’s ostensibly healthy, so the source of his woes remains mysterious.
An identifiable area of concern is his fastball velocity. Per Fangraphs, he averages 88.8 miles per hour with the offering this season, down from 91.7 a year ago. If he’s truly back to full health, then what reason is there for the drop in temperature on his heater? Curiously, he’s also throwing his fastball less often than he did in 2017. Right now, his four-seam fastball comes out 39.3% of the time, a significant decrease from last season’s 46.1% mark and much closer to 2016’s 37.9% mark. He’s also been using his cutter more this season than least season; at 9.1%, the usage rate is getting close to 2016’s 11.7% rate.
So, perhaps he just needs to adjust his pitch selection. Yet, if he’s really healthy, why isn’t he throwing as hard as he did in 2017, and why isn’t he using his fastball as much? More likely than not, we’ll find out the answers at some point this season.
Down: Rafael Devers
Rafael Devers, the stud third base prospect, hasn’t been all bad this year. He owns nine home runs and 28 RBI, and has often displayed his tantalizing offensive potential. Unfortunately, there’s been more bad than good thus far.
Calling his experience in the field an adventure would be putting it far too kindly. He’s committed 11 errors in 54 games this season. Last year, he committed 14 in 56, so it’s really impossible to say he’s made much, if any, progress.
At the plate, while his power sometimes breaks through, he too often looks lost and out of control. His swings are too frequently wild, and it’s begun to show on paper. His numbers have taken a nosedive since April, which was a good month for Devers. He hit .258 and drove in 18 runners two months ago. In May, however, he hit an anemic .212 and drove in just seven. More telling is his OPS, which dropped from it’s .748 April figure to .672 for the month of May.
As his discipline has broken down, he’s gotten on base less and has made weaker contact. On positive in all the mess is that his strikeout rate went down, which lends some room for hope. All young player go through slumps, and sometimes greatly protracted ones at that. Devers has the ability; what he needs to do now is harness it. Manager Alex Cora plans to stick with him, and that’s precisely the right decision. The best thing for his swing and his confidence is regular at-bats. More likely than not, Devers will put it together in the end.
Down: Dustin Pedroia
This one hurts to write, but unfortunately it has to be written. Not long ago, Red Sox fans and the team itself were eagerly awaiting the return of stalwart second baseman Dustin Pedroia from a knee injury. His always reliable defense would end the roller-coaster that was Eduardo Nunez‘s defense at second, and his bat would be more than welcome in a lineup that had a few too many soft-spots.
You see, though Pedroia may no longer be the hitter who won Rookie of the Year and MVP in back-to-back seasons, the Laser Show isn’t yet over. Just last season, though again hampered by injuries, Pedroia hit .293, with 7 home runs and 19 doubles in 105 games. A year before that, he played 154 games, his highest total since 2013, and clubbed 15 homers and 36 doubles while batting .318. His offense really isn’t far behind him, and he should still have some ahead of him. His glove, of course, is never in question.
Next: Chris Sale’s struggles not concerning
The problem, unfortunately, is his health. Pedroia’s comeback lasted a mere three games before knee inflammation landed him back on the disabled list. While that’s hardly any sort of meaningful sample size and he deserves a chance to shake the rust off, he tallied just a single hit in those three games. The 2016 season was Pedey’s only healthy year out of the past five. All athletes play hurt at some point or another, and Pedroia is as tough and gritty as they come. Yet, even the toughest can only play through pain for so long. Sadly, we have to start wondering how much more Pedroia’s body can take. We could be watching the Laser Show’s finale.