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The Red Sox are in a bit of a rut right now. On the one hand, this is not uncommon. Baseball season is long, and even the best teams are going to hit a stretch or two where things just aren’t going well. On the other hand, Boston is in a competitive division race, holding only a half-game lead over Tampa Bay after Sunday’s loss in the Bronx. They have lost three straight series, all of which started with a win but were followed by two straight losses, and in total they have lost six of their last eight games.
So while part of it is definitely the ebb and flow of a season, you just can’t sit back and watch it happen. This is especially true right now as the Red Sox are in the midst of a long stretch where they only play their main rivals in the AL East, with games exclusively against the Yankees, Blue Jays and les Rays until the beginning of August.
As for the struggles themselves, it would be a mistake to say that offense is the only reason the Red Sox are fighting. Their lack of productivity was all too evident over the weekend against the Yankees, however, and they’ve been spat lately. The group that has been among the best in baseball for most of this season has hit a wall lately, and it’s time for a change. You see it all the time from teams finding themselves in ruts, and shaking up the lineup can be a mixed bag. It’s not a guarantee fix, but it makes sense right now for the Red Sox.
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Photo by Adam Glanzman / Getty Images
Generally speaking, programming shaking can happen for different reasons. On the one hand, it may just wake people up. Part of being in a rut is that you just fall into a routine, which can be dangerous for a long season. It’s not that gamers don’t care or don’t try again, but it’s just human nature to get a little complacent and lose juice when you do the same thing day in and day out. It can also serve as an alarm signal for specific players. When we say the Red Sox should shake up the lineup, we’re not suggesting that everyone move to different places in the lineup, but rather that a few key things move. Struggling players know they are struggling, but finding a new place in the roster can add a spark to that urgency as they attempt to return to their previous place.
Of course, the flip side is that it can backfire on you, and players can either get angry or discouraged, or both after being demoted. This is where the manager comes in. Alex Cora is good at a lot of things, but communicating things to his players and getting them into his plan at some point is most important in my mind. It is a place where this quality can shine. With his ability to connect with players, he should be able to explain a roster change in a way that wouldn’t alienate anyone on his roster. It’s not necessarily something I would give to any manager with a top-place team, but Cora is on the list of skippers that I would trust.
So if we determine that upending the roster can help a struggling team into a vacuum, and we determine that Alex Cora is the kind of manager who can succeed without too much backlash in the clubhouse, then we move on to the next step, which is just to figure out what that means for the Red Sox. And Boston has two players struggling right now with Alex Verdugo and Hunter Renfroe. The first struggle in varying degrees for a few months now, and if we go back to May 23, it only hits 0.246 / 0.323 / .359. Renfroe, meanwhile, has only reached 0.200 / 0.275 / 0.289 since early July.
Renfroe is less of a problem for me, both because of where he’s hitting in the lineup right now and the kind of player he is. Streak has always been a part of his game, and he was expected to experience a cold spell after going through much of May and June. That’s not to say he doesn’t cost the Red Sox races, as he failed to pull off in some big spots. But with Verdugo you have one of the main hitters in the roster hitting at the most important point of the order providing very little right now. He’s not hitting for power, and lately he’s not even on base. The start of the reshuffle is with him and brings him out of those two places. On your turn, you can put one of your best hitters in that important spot, preferably (in my mind) with Rafael Devers.
From there, you can keep things largely stagnant, with Verdugo moving down to the lower half of the lineup and Renfroe moving down to the lower third, and perhaps getting more free time than it had been. . It’s an easier call to action with Jarren Duran in place. And speaking of Duran, there is an argument for really looking for a spark in this lineup by putting him on top. That said, while I wouldn’t complain if it did happen, I’m okay with sticking with Kiké Hernández for now, as he hit better in July with an .814 OPS. If he slows down, I would probably turn to Duran. But, all that being said, here’s how I would line things up right now:
- Kike Hernandez, 2B
- Rafael Devers, 3B
- JD Martinez, DH
- Xander Bogaerts, SS
- Jarren Duran, CF
- Hunter Renfroe, RF
- Alex Verdugo, LF
- Christian Vázquez, C
- Bobby Dalbec, 1B
On first base, you can put whoever you want between Christian Arroyo, Marwin Gonzalez or Danny Santana. But in general, that’s what I’d like to see. It puts a bit of pressure on Duran hitting just behind the big sticks in the roster, but we saw that the team weren’t worried about putting pressure on the rookie. And, for what it’s worth, Renfroe is only ahead of Verdugo to maintain the right / left gaps as much as possible.
I don’t really expect that to happen because I think the Red Sox are going to try and let their guys work out of the crisis. But the point is, right now, they don’t seem ready to do it, and Verdugo especially seems in need of some sort of shake-up. It’s too big a stretch to hope it all falls into place on its own, and I’d love to see changes to trigger a turnaround.
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