Red Sox News: Franchy Cordero returns to Boston’s lineup against O’s

Franchy Cordero makes his return to the Red Sox

The lineups were just announced and it’s official, Franchy Cordero is back with the Red Sox. The Wonder of Worcester got the ball to re-join the big club after today’s announcement that the team had DFA’d Travis Shaw. Things have been a headache for the club over at first base and this is another move to try and fix it. With his second chance with the team now in front of him, he’ll need to capitalize on however long his stay in Boston will be.

With the Red Sox looking for anything and everything that could possibly get this offense going, they’ve fired up the griddle and got a fat stack of Franch Toast cookin’. The story of Franchy is that his bat is loaded with dynamite. If he connects with a pitch just right that damn thing will never land.

In fact, his one homer in 2021 was one of the longest balls hit in the entire league all season. Unfortunately, he didn’t connect enough and he became more of a problem than a solution.

Looking at the talent that the Red Sox have at first base it’s no surprise that Chaim Bloom decided to make a move ahead of the Baltimore series. Shaw and Bobby Dalbec haven’t done much of anything in 2021 and the team simply can’t afford to have a dead position in the lineup every night.

Obviously, there’s no guarantee that Cordero is going to finally put things together this time around but his .296/.378/.535 line in Worcester is definitely intriguing.

He’s also already racked up 21 hits, including 8 doubles and 3 homers for 24 RBI. The one stat that jumped right off the screen at me was his BB/K rate. Cordero has earned 10 free passes already in the early MiLB season while striking out just 23 times.

To put it into perspective, in 2021 he struck out 51 times while walking just 8 times. Of course, we can’t count the chickens before they hatch but everything coming from him offensively so far is optimistic and much more than what we’re getting now.

The season is still very young and we have a lot of games left to play to right the ship but we also need to be realistic. If the bats don’t wake it up it’s not going to matter how well the pitching staff is performing. You can’t win games when you don’t score runs.

Everything I’ve seen from Franchy so far in 2021 leads me to believe that he could give this lineup a spark. Now, we’ve seen it plenty of times where guys mash in Triple-A but disappear under the big lights, I’m hoping this won’t be one of those times.

Boston has been getting bullied by the rest of the AL East and this weekend offers them a chance to be the big bad to Baltimore. Adding a guy with the power of Franchy can be a massive boost against the upcoming weak pitching.

If he’s also able to maintain the patience he’s shown in Worcester and draw plenty of walks he could play a Kyle Schwarber-type role. Remind everyone to hold their bat on their shoulders unless the pitch is just right, then kill the damn thing.

We have no idea what this season will hold but I’m glad we’re finally seeing at least a small amount of urgency from the Red Sox. This team should be sitting in a much more favorable seat in the standings and I appreciate that Bloom is doing something to try and fix things.

After an exhausting offseason and a nightmare first month of the season, Boston is looking for any sort of positivity. I don’t know if Cordero is going to be some massive game-changer, but I’m glad they’re willing to try something before the train goes off the tracks.