Red Sox @ Pale Hose Game Thread/ 23rd- 25th June 2023

Injuries & Moves: Reliever Scott acquired from Dodgers
June 22nd, 2023
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June 22: RHP Tayler Scott acquired from Dodgers in exchange for cash considerations; RHP John Schreiber transferred to 60-day injured list
In their ongoing effort to compile pitching depth, the Sox landed the 31-year-old Scott. He has pitched six games for the Dodgers this season, allowing six runs in six innings. At Triple-A Oklahoma City, Scott had a 1.37 ERA in 19 games. In order to add Scott to the 40-man roster, the Sox moved Schreiber (right teres major strain) to the 60-day injured list.

June 22: C Reese McGuire placed on 10-day IL; C Caleb Hamilton selected from Triple-A Worcester; LHP Brandon Walter recalled; OF Alex Verdugo placed on bereavement list; INF Yu Chang transferred to 60-day IL
A day after injuring his right oblique while taking a swing in the top of the sixth inning of Wednesday's 5-4 loss to the Twins, McGuire was placed on the 10-day injured list. The Red Sox selected Hamilton, who appeared in 22 games for the Twins in 2022, to take McGuire's spot. Manager Alex Cora said that Connor Wong will get the majority of the playing time behind the plate while McGuire is out.

In addition to those moves, Verdugo was placed on the bereavement list to attend services for his grandmother. The Red Sox expect Verdugo will miss the three-game series in Chicago this weekend and will return for the start of the next homestand on Tuesday night against the Marlins. Walter, who is the club's No. 7 prospect per MLB Pipeline, was recalled and Chang (left hamate fracture) was transferred to the 60-day IL.

All-Star voting is silly, but Alex Verdugo’s fan-vote snub is an indictment of the Red Sox
Verdugo, the Red Sox' best player by a reasonably comfortable margin this season, didn't even sniff the fan vote.



By Jon Couture
June 23, 2023 | 10:39 AM

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COMMENTARY

We’re going to get a little arcane today, because the Red Sox have done nothing to force us to look too close. Two wins, two losses. Nine runs, 10 runs, then opportunities wasted and no runs. Team goes up, team goes down. Playoff odds go up, playoff odds go down.

The long view is better, as Alex Speier pointed out in the Globe specifically about the starting pitching. The short view is, largely by necessity, Justin Garza and Brandon Walter made their major-league debuts on Thursday to fill the hole left by Tanner Houck. (Which will need more filling given Houck is getting a plate in his face.)

Walter went 6⅔ innings to reset the bullpen. David Hamilton’s single was one of just three for the Sox in the game. It could’ve been worse. It also could’ve been something, which the whole series wasn’t after Wednesday was all outs on the bases and chances with runners on uncashed.

That All-Star starter voting progressed without the owners of baseball’s 16th-best record is no headline news. Even if this will be the first year without a Red Sox starter since 2019. Even if the degree to which they won’t is profound — Rafael Devers was fourth in voting among third basemen more on reputation than production, and Masataka Yoshida was eighth among outfielders, two spots from the second stage of voting.

Alex Verdugo? By most metrics the Red Sox; best player by a reasonably comfortable margin this season? Major League Baseball released outfielder vote totals 20 deep at three points in the voting.

Verdugo was never on the board.

I just can’t get over that.

I’ve been watching this long enough to know screaming about “deserving” with the All-Star Game is a fool’s errand. When baseball attached World Series home field to the game, you could maybe make a case about it — which I did, heartily.

Thankfully, I now only complain about important things, like every time the Carolina Hurricanes wear Hartford Whalers colors. (Don’t get me started.) But Verdugo place in all this, or more specifically his lack of one, confirms what we all knew and yet is something that should be repeated for those in the back.

And in the Jersey Street offices.

By Fangraphs’ WAR, Verdugo (away from the team on bereavement leave likely until next week) has been the third- or fourth-best outfielder in the American League. Baseball Reference ties him for second with Tampa’s Randy Arozarena, just behind Luis Robert Jr. — likely the best White Sox you’ll see at Guaranteed Rate Field this weekend.

Verdugo leads American League outfielders in hits and doubles. He’s second in runs to Texas’s Adolis García. Three qualified AL outfielders have .300 averages at the moment: Baltimore’s Austin Hays, Yoshida, and Verdugo. He’s fifth in OPS and has been excellent in the difficult Fenway right field, not to mention as dynamic a personality as the team has at the moment.

He’s embraced playing here. He’s embraced being challenged by Alex Cora. He ticks just about every New England Fan Favorite box. In a year where the “every team gets one All-Star rule” was clearly in play for the Red Sox, two-time reigning starter Devers was always likely the guy, but Verdugo absolutely did enough to make the conversation.

Guess not. The six AL finalists are Aaron Judge, Mike Trout, and Yordan Alvarez (superstars); Arozarena and García (played their way in); and Toronto’s Kevin Kiermaier — one of five Blue Jays who could win a runoff to start because even in an underachieving year, Canada stans Canada harder than you’ve ever stanned anything.

It’s impossible to get this deep without noting the National League totals, with J.D. Martinez tops among designated hitters, Mookie Betts second among outfielders, and Xander Bogaerts third among shortstops. I’ll leave it there because we’ve trod those latter two paths to dust, and Justin Turner has been everything a resurgent Martinez has.

But that’s also part of the point. Above and beyond Boston’s lack of success in constructing a major-league team since Dave Dombrowski was fired, it’s been done in a way where no one outside of Devers feels a part of anything substantial.

I’m trying to be fair about this. Four months into his tenure, Chaim Bloom was forced to dump both Alex Cora and Mookie Betts. He inherited elbow-compromised Chris Sale. COVID destroyed a season. A looming bargaining fight and a lockout blew up a winter. It has not been the easiest time to rebuild a franchise in some other image.

But we’re four years in and the Red Sox are without question a middling option in the American League. And they are undisputably the fourth most interesting team in Boston.

It is the sort of thing that used to prompt sudden action, and Theo Epstein to sit through meetings with NESN officials. “We Won’t Rest Until Order Has Been Restored.” Back when the Red Sox were regulars in baseball’s top three payrolls.

We’ve beaten that rug to death, too, Boston now 14th according to Spotrac. Times change. The parameters of the league and its playoff structure change. I get it.

But let’s be clear about this: It’s another reset year in Boston. After edging over the luxury tax number a year ago (with very little return on the investment), this year the Red Sox will avoid the second-time payor penalty unless something really weird happens.

It won’t get the play it got in 2020. We all remember how well that went over.

But that means it needs to be full go this winter. You would think that goes without saying, given the clock ticks louder each day given the degree the 2021 “two games from the World Series” season looks like the outlier.

The prospects are maturing. The homegrown rotation is materializing. Trevor Story’s elbow is healing. The Sale deal has just one year left after this one.

But this team needs to win, sooner than later. That used to go without saying on Jersey Street. Yet here we are watching a very good season by a notable character blow away in the wind, to the apparent disinterest of a sports-mad market.

If that doesn’t get the attention of those who led it to happen, maybe we all need to reassess what exactly we’re doing here.

Do-it-all Devers drives Red Sox to victory in Chicago
1:56 AM GMT-3


CHICAGO -- As quickly as Lucas Giolito turned around to watch the drive off Rafael Devers’ bat, the White Sox starter whipped back around, put his head down and strutted off the mound.

He didn’t need to give it a long look.

Devers’ two-run homer off Giolito in the fourth inning Friday -- which had a Statcast-projected 110.1 mph exit velocity -- was a difference maker in the Red Sox’s 3-1, series-opening win over the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field.

“It feels good,” Devers said through team interpreter Carlos Villoria. “It feels good to be able to help the team win.”

Devers entered the day with a .216/.337/.432 slash line through 20 games in June, with four homers and 11 RBIs. Two of those homers came over a week ago, on June 13 against the Rockies.

It’s been an interesting season for the 26-year-old. Devers entered Friday’s series opener in Chicago with 17 homers and tied for the MLB lead with 58 RBIs. But that was paired with a .238/.302/.480 slash line in 72 games, figures all significantly below his career averages.

“He's hitting the ball harder than ever,” manager Alex Cora said. “He’s struggling against fastballs, but he's hitting them hard. He's struggling against breaking balls, but hitting them hard. We’ve just got to stay the course and he'll be fine.”

Devers entered the day with a 52.8 percent hard-hit rate this season, which would be a new career high. That ranked in the 94th percentile in MLB; his average exit velocity (92.8 mph) ranked in the 93rd percentile.

In his first plate appearance, he got under a 93.8 mph four-seam fastball from Giolito and popped out to shallow left field.

When he came up again in the fourth, Devers worked an eight-pitch at-bat, and five of the pitches were four-seamers. He watched a pair go out of the zone and fouled off three others, including the sixth and seventh pitches of the sequence.

Giolito’s eight pitch was a slider, hung over the heart of the plate, and Devers sent it a Statcast-projected 434 feet, halfway up the seats in right.

“It’s pretty frustrating,” Giolito said. “I think that if I made better pitches to Devers and didn’t give up a homer, then it would’ve been a different game, so I only have myself to blame for that. But overall, one, maybe two, three mistakes, I’ll take that, personally. But I want to win, so it is frustrating.”

The drive gave Devers sole possession of 16th place in Red Sox franchise history with 157 home runs, breaking a tie with Xander Bogaerts.

He knew he got all of it; after making contact, he leaned back, took several steps with his bat in hand and then flipped it into the air.


“It was soft in the zone,” Cora said. “He’s got work to do, but that's the beauty of Rafy. He can go 0-for-4 with four strikeouts, and then the next day, he has three strikeouts, and then he puts a good swing and that happens.”

Devers struck out in his final two trips to the plate Friday, but the home run was a good sign. Cora was encouraged that the pitch Devers hit over the fence was a slider.

The Red Sox’s offense needed that lift. It tallied just four hits while striking out 17 times.

Devers came up big with his glove, too, starting a double play in the fourth to squash a potential White Sox rally. After Eloy Jiménez led off the inning with a single, Andrew Vaughn hit a sharp grounder to Devers. He slid to his right and made a backhanded stop, spun to his left, got up and fired a strike to second base.



“Obviously in the past few days, I have been struggling,” Devers said. “But to be able to help the team win is great for us. Today it was me, but every time, every day, every other teammate will step up to help the team win.”

That was a key play in another strong start by Brayan Bello, who allowed just one run and six hits in 6 2/3 innings. The 24-year-old has gone six-plus innings in four straight starts and five of his past six.

Since allowing five earned runs in his first start this season, Bello hasn’t allowed more than three in 11 since.

“He was good, and he’s getting better,” Cora said of Bello. “Today was a challenge, quote-unquote, right? Regular rest against a lineup that hits the ball out of the ballpark. He gave us more than enough.”

Alex Cora: Where Red Sox roster is, Bobby Dalbec ‘needs to be patient’
Updated: Jun. 23, 2023, 7:31 p.m.|Published: Jun. 23, 2023, 7:27 p.m.

By Christopher Smith | csmith@masslive.com
CHICAGO — The Red Sox recalled slugger Bobby Dalbec from Triple-A Worcester on Friday, his first stint on the active roster in more than a month.

Dalbec will take Pablo Reyes’ roster spot. Reyes (abdominal strain) has been placed on the 10-day injured list.


MassLive asked Dalbec on Wednesday in Worcester if he wants to be traded before the deadline. He said he loves the Red Sox organization and wants to help Boston win but he added, “eyes on the big-picture, I don’t know if there’s necessarily a lane for meaningful opportunity for me with the Red Sox right now.”


Dalbec has batted .296 with a .414 on-base percentage, .638 slugging percentage, 1.051 OPS, 18 homers, nine doubles, two triples, 48 runs and 42 RBIs in 54 games (237 plate appearances) for the WooSox. He crushed a home run completely out of Polar Park and off a moving train Tuesday.

Manager Alex Cora was asked Friday about Dalbec’s comment that there’s not necessarily a lane for meaningful opportunity with Boston. Triston Casas is blocking Dalbec at first base. He’s a natural third baseman but the Red Sox obviously have $313.5 million star Rafael Devers locked in for the next decade at the hot corner.

“Obviously where we’re at roster-wise, he needs to be patient,” Cora said here at Guaranteed Rate Field. “And I understand how it works. It’s part of it. While he’s here, he’s going to get chances to contribute. And he’s ready to go. That’s part of being a big leaguer, a professional baseball player. He sees what’s going on here. He expressed his opinion. But at the same time, he belongs to us. He’s with us. And he’s been working hard to get better. In this business, you’re always one injury away from coming up here and contributing. He’s here right now and hopefully, he’s in the right frame of mind. And whenever he gets a shot, just go ahead and keep doing the things you were doing at Triple A.”

The Red Sox plan to use Dalbec mostly at the corner infield positions.

Dalbec played some shortstop and right field at Worcester. But the Red Sox will try to stay away from him at shortstop.

“I think in the outfield here, we’ve got a lot of guys, including Caleb (Hamilton). He’s played outfield, too,” Cora said. “So we’ll keep him probably mostly in the infield. But if we need him in an emergency in the outfield, we’re not afraid to do it.”

In Worcester, manager Chad Tracy told reporters, including MassLive, how Dalbec has kept a positive attitude all season.

“The last time he went up for a brief stint, when he came back down, he didn’t pout or sulk,” Tracy said. “He just showed back up and became part of the group again and went back to work. He’s trying to improve his game in all areas. He’s out there sweating like crazy. He’s taking balls in right. He’s getting grounders at third. He’s trying to improve at multiple positions. He’s always working on his swing. It’s good for him get another look.”

Red Sox pitcher ‘was stressing’ after looking at wrong number on scoreboard
Updated: Jun. 24, 2023, 1:31 a.m.|Published: Jun. 24, 2023, 12:27 a.m.


By Christopher Smith | csmith@masslive.com
CHICAGO — Manager Alex Cora knew it right away: Red Sox starter Brayan Bello looked up and saw the wrong number.

“At one point he looked up at the scoreboard and his reaction was like he was disappointed because he saw the pitch count,” Cora said after the Red Sox’s 3-1 win over the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field on Friday.



But Bello saw White Sox starting pitcher Lucas Giolito’s pitch count, not his own. His own pitch count was much more economical.

“I said, ‘Bro, you were looking at the wrong pitcher. You are in a good spot,’” Cora said. “He wants to go deep in the game.”

Bello did go deep again. He pitched 6 ⅔ innings and gave up one run, six hits and one walk while striking out five. He improved to 5-4 with a 3.27 ERA.

The 24-year-old righty — who has a 2.45 ERA in his past 10 starts — has pitched six or more innings in six of his past eight starts.

“I think it was in the fifth inning when I looked up and it was like 89, 90 pitches,” Bello said through translator Carlos Villoria Benítez. “And then Alex came to me and was like, ‘You were looking at the wrong screen.’ I’m like, ‘OK, now I can relax a little bit more’ because I was stressing out about having that many pitches.”


Bello finished at 104 pitches.

“My goal is always to go deep into the games so I can help the bullpen,” Bello said. “That has been my mentality since I came up here. So I’m trying to get quick outs. I’m not trying to strike out anybody. That’s been the key like I said before, too: to go deep into the game and be able to throw 7 and 6 ⅔ (innings) like today.”

He topped out at 96.3 mph. He averaged 95 mph with his 17 four-seam fastballs and 94 mph with his 43 two-seamers, per Baseball Savant. He also added 26 changeups, nine cutters and nine sliders. He recorded 12 swings and misses: six with his changeup, four with his two-seamer and one each with his cutter and slider.


It was the first time he has ever thrown a cutter. He began working on it in between starts.

“He’s getting better,” Cora said. “Today was a challenge quote-unquote on regular rest against a lineup that they hit the ball out of the ballpark and all that. He gave us more than enough.”