Keeping a scorebook is one of my favorite parts of a baseball game. It’s an experience unique to bat-and-ball sports, a record of everything that has gone on just a glance or a page turn away.
With analytics and in-depth stats readily available, what you can glean from a well-kept scorebook is now mostly moot. But still, there are plenty of fun stats and trends you can find in each game and series that tell the highs and lows of each individual game. With that in mind, here is what you can learn from the scoresheet in the Red Sox weekend series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
4 Trends from the Scoresheet: The Red Sox sweep the Cardinals
Rafael Devers bounced back
The season started off rough for Rafael Devers. His strikeout numbers across the first five games had turned him into social media’s punching bag, and it seemed like the move to DH may go down as a bust.
Devers began trending up in Baltimore and caught fire against the Cardinals. He went 7-for-11 at the plate this weekend with two doubles and a solo shot home run to go along with four walks, six runs, and six RBIs.
What stands out most about Devers' weekend, though, is how good he was with runners on base. Devers was 4-for-4 with three walks against the Cardinals with runners on. Three of those four hits and one of the walks led to RBIs, and four of those times he managed to reach with runners already aboard, he also managed to come around and score.
Let's get the leadoff man on and go from there
On April 4, the Red Sox got their leadoff hitter aboard twice. He reached three times in the second game of their April 6 doubleheader. The Red Sox scored in seven of the nine innings in which their leadoff man reached base. Twenty-two of the Red Sox's 36 total runs also came in innings where the leadoff man reached.
Alex Bregman was flat-out better with runners on base
The Red Sox scored 31 runs in the two games that bookended the three-game series. In those two games, Alex Bregman went 6-for-8 with three doubles, a home run, and seven RBI. Without any runners on ahead of him, Bregman went 0-for-3 with two walks. If the Red Sox want him to drive the offense from the three-hole, it’ll be important to get Devers and Duran on base.
Wilyer Abreu was wicked over the weekend
Wilyer Abreu went 0-for-4 across his last four plate appearances, but he was pretty sharp the rest of the weekend. Seven of his first nine plate appearances were productive. He had a run or picked up an RBI every time he reached and made the difference in the sweep, scoring the game-tying run in game two of the series and plating the game-winner in the next frame.