Red Sox 3B Rafael Devers red hot after another slow start

Back on Aug. 13, when Rafael Devers was hitting .169 with eight errors in 17 games, the Red Sox weren’t worried.

Devers wasn’t worried.

Every time he was asked about his struggles, the answer was the same: Devers likes to swing at everything. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes it does. And he’s got enough confidence in himself to know his numbers will be there eventually.

“I haven’t changed much,” Devers said after going 3-for-4 with a homer and three RBIs in the Red Sox’ 4-3 win over the Rays on Thursday. “Obviously I’ve made a couple of adjustments here and there, but I’m still maintaining my aggressiveness at the plate and just coming into work every day like I’m supposed to and just putting in the work and trying to get better and better.

“Obviously during the beginning of the season things weren’t going my way but now that they are, I’m starting to reap the benefits.”

The scary part is that Devers can look like the worst player in the big leagues when things aren’t going well.

And for the first three weeks of the season, he did.

Routine groundballs were botched. Every throw was an adventure. He was swinging at everything — what’s new? — and missing most of the time.

Surely there are some legitimate questions about Devers’ readiness to start the year, especially when he was similarly rusty last year, when he went his first 32 games without a home run and made nine errors in that span.

Is there something about his offseason workout program that needs adjusting? Does he need extra monitoring or motivation before spring training? Those are questions the Red Sox will have to answer before 2021.

At least Devers doesn’t let a slow start bother him.

“I just continued to have that positive mindset that I always had,” Devers said. “I come to the ballpark every day with a smile and obviously it was tough at first. I’d come in here every day happy but I’d still be frustrated with the way things were going for me but I just understood that that’s part of the game and I just continue to go after it and just improve and try to get better every single day.

“Now I’m actually hitting the ball better but I’ve never changed the way that I approach the game.”

He was locked in Thursday, roping a hanging slider for a two-run blast in the third inning, and adding a go-ahead single in the seventh to give the Red Sox a lead.

“Raffy for me, he’s back now where he was last year,” Roenicke said. “And just hitting everything. Hitting fastballs up, off-speed down, he covers a big portion of that plate. He’s what we saw from him a long time last year.”

That it takes Devers a month to get going every year doesn’t seem to bother the Red Sox either.

“He went a month last year before he got hot,” Roenicke said. “A month and a half this year and we’re almost done. I’m glad he kicked it in a little earlier than that. But the long season, you know he’s going to do it. It’s easier to be patient when you have six months because you know it’s going to happen. And on his part too, not necessarily us, knowing you have six months is a big difference and you don’t worry so much if you have a bad month.”

Devers followed up his bad month with a ridiculous 11-game span in which he’s hitting .452 with six homers and 15 RBIs.

“He’s on time better right now,” Roenicke said. “I don’t know why that timing gets out of whack. But everything he’s swinging at, if he’s on time for the fastball, he knows he’s on time and he doesn’t have to cheat. And then he sees the breaking ball well. And I think before he was late on the fastball. So he’s cheating trying to get to it and he doesn’t pick it up because he’s trying to jump and cheat to get to a fastball.

“Why all of a sudden is he on it again like he was last year? After that first month did he get on it? I don’t know. I can’t answer that. But that’s the difference.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/35rPb32