Red Sox supervisor Alex Cora advised reporters in Toronto on Friday that he was going to let bench coach Will Venable and hitting coach Pete Fatse make out the lineup playing cards over the weekend.
Here’s hoping certainly one of them tries the apparent: Triston Casas within the leadoff spot.
Casas is essentially the most affected person participant the Red Sox have had since Kyle Schwarber inexplicably left city for Philadelphia, the place he’s main the National League with 42 residence runs (and 195 strikeouts).
The 22-year-old Casas entered this weekend’s collection with 11 walks to 5 strikeouts in his final eight video games whereas getting on base 62% of his plate appearances.
Casas has solely been within the large leagues a couple of weeks, nevertheless it’s already clear that the Red Sox haven’t haven’t developed a homegrown participant who can management the strike zone with this degree of effectiveness since Kevin Youkilis.
And but, let’s examine in on the Red Sox batting order for Friday’s sport in Toronto: Casas was batting sixth whereas Cora continued to take his unconventional strategy to the leadoff spot with Jarren Duran atop the order.
Unconventional is a sort manner of placing it. Here’s one other adjective that’s simply as correct: disastrous.
The Red Sox are a top-tier offense taking part in at one of the hitter-friendly parks in baseball, and but their manufacturing out of the leadoff spot since Mookie Betts was traded to the Dodgers has been a nightmare.
This yr, Sox leadoff hitters rank twenty fourth with a putrid .300 OBP. They rank twenty second with a .680 OPS. Their strikeout price of twenty-two% and stroll price of 6% each rank twenty seventh.
It’s been a sore level all yr, however must be stated again and again due to how ridiculous it continues to look. And now that they’ve a fresh-faced rookie with a greater plate strategy than most large leaguers, it’s as soon as once more a dialogue matter.
Why not set the desk with a participant who’s assured to manage the strike zone, drive up a pitch depend, take walks, make contact and in addition possess game-changing energy?
It’s what the Sox did with Betts, the one distinction was that Betts had pace and Casas, who truly has one stolen base on the yr, definitely doesn’t.
But stolen bases are a factor of the previous and on-base pace has hardly been an element for contemporary groups when writing out their lineups. Good groups need on-base freaks. And the numbers present that.
Ranked by leadoff OBP, the top-seven groups in MLB this yr are all playoff groups. The prime three groups are World Series contenders: the Mets, Dodgers and Astros.
Put your finest on-base man on the prime of the order and let your finest hitters drive him in.
Sometimes it seems like we’ve obtained so many statistics and laptop packages telling us easy methods to keep present that we as an trade overlook to do the apparent.
The Red Sox definitely have.
Duran, their leadoff hitter of selection on Friday after he determined to get vaccinated towards COVID-19 and was lastly allowed to enter Canada, was batting first for the thirty ninth time for the Red Sox this yr. He has a .283 OBP and strikes out 29% of the time. He doesn’t management the zone and doesn’t draw plenty of walks, and this isn’t uncommon for Cora to deal with the leadoff spot this manner.
Other than Duran, the three-most used hitters within the leadoff spot this yr are Tommy Pham (.318 OBP), Trevor Story (.303 OBP) and Kiké Hernandez (.292 OBP).
Now, one can blame the supervisor for the lineup development or the overall supervisor for roster development or the gamers for poor efficiency, however the outcomes are the identical.
The Sox lastly have a participant who can get on base with one of the best of them and proper now they’re utilizing him within the decrease half of the lineup.
These video games don’t matter, nevertheless it’d be good to see a participant together with his skillset get an opportunity to get on base and put strain on the opposing pitcher instantly. Or on the very least, drive his pitch depend up, present the starter’s stuff to the remainder of the lineup and make him work.
Here’s hoping Venable or Fatse give it a strive.
Source: www.bostonherald.com