The bottom third remains unproductive on most nights. Only in the last month has Hernandez become a force at the top of the lineup. When the middle of the order can’t save the Red Sox, nobody can. The Sox continue to get nothing from first base, where Bobby Dalbec has the worst contact rate in the majors and a handful of others have tried, and failed, to take the job from him. ![]() This isn’t a team that thrives on making contact, but one that has a manager who asks for it.Īs much as the Red Sox could use one more pitcher to tighten up the bullpen, it’s becoming quite clear that one more batter should be the priority. Their 72.8% contact rate ranks 20th in MLB. The Yankees did it yesterday and we did it today.”Īs much as Cora has asked for his team to make more contact all season, the Red Sox remain a team that’s below-average in doing so. “We live with strikeouts and all that but there are certain at-bats that you have to make sure you put the ball in play and good things happen. “For the baseball fans and the people who get caught up in the walks, strikeouts and homers, the last two days was a good example that contact matters,” Cora said. They tightened their strike zone and went to work with hard-hit doubles to the pull-side and opposite-field, some basic ground balls to advance runners and a pop fly into right field to score another on a sacrifice fly. ![]() Eight batters came to the plate in the eighth inning, and only one of them, Rafael Devers, swung and missed at a pitch outside the zone. They forgot about the first seven innings and stopped swinging at junk. German had them hitless through seven, with only one walk and two innings standing in the way of a perfect game against one of MLB’s best teams.īut the Red Sox stuck around. They should’ve lost on Friday, when they did all the little things wrong, but Hernandez bailed them out with ninth-inning heroics and they spooked the Yankees into making some questionable bullpen decisions in an extra-innings win for the local nine. They just as easily could’ve split the six games they played this week. The July 31 trade deadline is approaching, the Red Sox have won five of six and probably didn’t deserve to win a couple of them. It was the sound of a team that deserves the absolute best that chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom can get them before 5 o’clock on Saturday afternoon. ![]() It was the sound of a team that isn’t always the most talented group on the field, but has the intangibles. This was the sound of a 4-0 loss turned into a 5-4 win in a matter of minutes. The message couldn’t have been any clearer, or any louder, as it started on the field at Fenway Park on Sunday and surely made its way all the way up to the conference rooms and offices inside.įrom the absolute silence of the Red Sox bats for seven innings, when they were being no-hit by the Yankees’ Domingo German, to the Alex Verdugo double to break it up, the hits by Hunter Renfroe, Christian Vazquez and, gasp, even Franchy Cordero to keep it going, the red-hot Kiké Hernandez with another extra-base hit and the simple contact to drive in the game-tying and go-ahead runs.
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