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.