The Alex Cora Running Club
It's becoming a time-honored tradition.
The rookie who suffers in April only to find himself shot out of a cannon just when it appears all hope is lost. It's called a 'Pedroia'.
It was 17 years ago that Dustin Pedroia went from an under-.200-hitting second baseman to Rookie of the Year, starting with two hits on May 4 against then-star lefty Johan Santana. Two years ago, Bobby Dalbec saw the April-to-May transformation, with Triston Casas serving as the latest example of perseverance in 2023.
"You’ve just gotta make sure you help him throughout the process," Red Sox manager Alex Cora said last year when Casas was going through his early-season woes. "I think that's the most important thing. Talk to them, looking for certain matchups to help him get out of whatever he's going through. And the good thing about Casas, although the numbers don’t reflect that, he’s been playing some good first base. That's something, going back to Pedroia in ’07, that's what caught our attention as veterans. He was hitting .180, but he made sure when he was playing second, whoever was hitting was hitting .182, because he tried to make every play, he played with passion, he ran the bases well whenever he got on. And that's what you want from them, because at one point, talent is gonna take over and you're going to be fine."
Now we can start wondering if Ceddanne Rafaela is next up, ready to pull a "Pedroia".
Dustin Pedroia remembers his rookie year turnaround
It's not everyday that a player can raise his batting average by 35 points in late April, but that's exactly what Rafaela did after collecting four hits in the Red Sox' 17-0 win over the Cubs Saturday.
And it wasn't just the box score that impressed when it came to Rafaela (who ended up with a home run and two doubles), it was the path he took to collecting those hits.
Heading into Saturday, Rafaela's offensive struggles were getting uncomfortable. His batting average stood at just .156 with an OPS of .576 and one of the worst chase rates in baseball. He also didn't have a single hit in close and late situations. But the Red Sox were willing to be patient with their rookie. They had no choice. Defensively, Rafaela provided a skill-set at shortstop that pushed aside all of those offensive issues.
The hope for Cora and Co. is that now Rafaela's story can evolve in a Pedroia-esque manner.
“We’ll know tomorrow, right?” Cora said. “That's the beauty of this game. We don't know what’s going to happen tomorrow. He had a good game in Pittsburgh on [April 19]. He didn't have a good game the next [few] days. So we continue to work with him and give him structure, guidance and help him out. And like I said yesterday, we’ve just got to be patient.”
The manager added, "Just keep improving. I’m not going to talk about numbers, all that. We just want him to improve, and we know the upside and we know what he can become. But this is the big leagues, and it takes a while. There's a learning curve, and we have to be patient."
Cora has lived it, as a player (helping prop up Pedroia throughout that April in 2007) and then as Casas' manager last season.
Maybe the four-hit game is nothing more than a blip, not representing the same kind of fork-in-the-road Pedroia found against Santana. But if the offensive outburst does turn into Rafaela's offensive launching pad, the conversation about the player and the team might be in for alteration.
It happened 17 years ago to another middle infielder and a team that ended up doing just fine.
"The game is about adjustments and being able to adjust to the other team making adjustments to you," Pedroia told the 'Baseball Isn't Boring' podcast last year. "And the faster you make adjustments, the better player you’re going to be. Now I see him from watching the game making adjustments, not only game to game but pitch to pitch and that’s what makes a good hitter. If you can make adjustments pitch to pitch you’re an elite baseball player at the major league level. If you can make adjustments from at-bat to at-bat, you’re a good major league player. That’s the difference. You make adjustments week to week? Guess what? You’re a below average major league levels. The game is about adjustments and how you can adjust to the people making the adjustments to you. That’s the game. Because everyone has talent. You see all the pitchers. They’re all throwing hard. They’re all locating. Everybody has got everything and everybody knows everything about everybody. It’s how you’re going to respond to how they know you is what is going to make you what type of player you’re going to be."