Aug 5, 2024; Kansas City, Missouri, USA; Boston Red Sox third baseman Rafael Devers (11) singles in the fifth inning against the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Peter Aiken-Imagn Images Peter Aiken-Imagn Images
The Major League Baseball season is well underway, but the Boston Red Sox are still waiting for some of their best hitters to wake up.
Boston’s two-through-four bats in the lineup — Rafael Devers, Alex Bregman, and Triston Casas — are a combined 1-for-24 at the plate with 12 strikeouts and zero walks through the first 18 innings of the season.
Bregman’s sixth-inning single up the middle in Friday’s 4-1 loss to the Texas Rangers is the only time any of the above three guys has been on base so far this season.
On the other hand, any "struggles" through two games of a 162-game campaign can’t be called significant. The media spotlight is likely to zero in on Devers’s hitless start, anyway, due to the headlines he attracted this spring amid his switch from third base to DH, a move that didn’t begin smoothly.
Devers stepped up on Friday after the game and did well to squash the positon change drama once and for all, however.
“Right now, we’re in the season,” Devers told reporters, per The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey. “I’m a DH, and I feel like you guys need to change the subject because that is over and I’m the DH.”
In his new role, Devers has begun the 2025 campaign 0-for-8 with seven strikeouts and has looked slow to react to fastballs, an issue that plagued Devers during the final phase of last season.
“I think it’s just one of those that (Devers is) not catching up with the fastball, and he’s going to keep working," Red Sox manager Alex Cora said, per McCaffrey. "That’s what he’s been doing the whole time, and he’ll be OK."
Devers also didn’t hide from his difficult start at the plate when speaking to the media on Friday.
“I know that I haven’t done my job and I haven’t done what I’m supposed to do,” Devers said through interpreter Carlos Villoria-Benítez (per McCaffrey). “But I know that everything will change. I have my routine. I try to stay warm and go warm to the plate. But like I said before, it’s only been two games, and tomorrow I’ll come back here and I’ll try to hit the ball.”
Red Sox fans need not be alarmed by Devers’s first two games, especially because the All-Star started 0-for-13 in 2021 and wound up with 38 home runs, 113 RBI, and a No. 11 finish in MVP voting.
Take a deep breath, everyone.
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