On Monday, Red Sox bench coach Ramon Vazquez met with the media in the home dugout ahead of his team’s series opener with the New York Mets (29-18) at Fenway Park.
Vazquez gets the spot-start at manager for one night and one night only, as Alex Cora spends his Monday at Boston College for his daughter’s graduation.
And with rookie infielder/outfielder Kristian Campbell seen getting reps in at first base pregame for the second straight day, Vazquez had a juicy topic to work with during his eight-minute media scrum.
When will we see Campbell make his debut for Boston (23-25) at first base in a major league game?
According to Vazquez, it wouldn’t be advisable to hold your breath on this one.
“How close do you feel to ‘comfortable’ with having [Campbell] in a game [at first base]?” asked The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier.
“You know, games is hard to say,” said Vazquez. “There’s just so much, so many different things that come into play during games, you can’t practice that, you know?
“Runners being on base; what do you gotta do with the cut-off? Ball going up the middle [and] you gotta go to first base, but if it’s caught and if it’s not caught you gotta go through the relay. Those kinds of things – we’ve seen guys with a lot more experience playing first base, you saw the missed play the other day. Especially with guys like that. You’re playing up the middle all the time, you go after balls, that’s your first instinct. Catch the ball and make a play.
“Those are the kinds of things - it’s almost impossible doing it here. It’s game-like. It’s gonna be hard. I’m not gonna say [he’s] never gonna be ready ever. It’s just gonna take time. Even when he starts playing, there’s gonna be mistakes. He’s gonna go to the wrong place at times, and when the time comes we’ll have to deal with that.”
Monday will mark Campbell’s second straight game as a healthy scratch from the lineup card, as the team gives him a reset of sorts as he works through the first real struggles of his professional career. After earning American League Rookie of the Month in April, Campbell has gone 4 for 47 over his last 11 games. That’s good for a batting average of .085, bringing his WAR on the season down to -0.1 entering Monday after peaking at 1.2 on April 30.
“It’s tough,” said Vazquez. “At this level, we all know how it is - how everyone prepares once they get a little bit of information on you. They prepare for you, they prepare especially for you.
“I think that’s something he’s finally dealing with and we saw the success at the beginning and slowly they’ve been getting to know him a little bit and it’s getting a little harder for him, but we know how good of an athlete he is. He has really good, impressive skills putting the bat on the baseball.”
We shall see if this short break from game action as he continues working on learning first base allows the 22-year-old to lock back into the player he was while bursting onto the scene just a few weeks ago.
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