It wasn't one of Rich Hill's better curveballs, hanging up near Alex Verdugo's shoulders while coming in at just 70 mph. But, just the same, the result of the pitch should have been notable.
In his very first at-bat of the season, hitting in the Red Sox' No. 2 spot Friday, Verdugo waited, and waited, and waited and then absolutely unfurled the bat. Hill's offering was immediately rifled into right field at a rate of about 30 mph more than it had originally approached home plate at.
It was a nice sample of why Verdugo is being relied on so heavily by the Red Sox. They believe that sort of display can be, and will be, the norm.
A reminder of how Alex Cora views the outfielder came when talking about the Red Sox' lineup prior to Friday's game. This is a guy who will be coming up in the first inning.
"Alex is going to hit in the first third of the lineup," the Red Sox manager noted. "He’ll hit up there. Like I’ve been saying. If you’re going to break it down, we’ll have the athletes … well, top two athletes, yeah, I mean, it all depends. The way I see it, Alex is going to leadoff or hit second. Let’s leave it at that. I don’t want to crush people saying that they’re not athletic, yeah."
Nobody is going to compare Verdugo to Mookie Betts, and there is a very good chance the 24-year-old won't be manning the lineup's top spot as Betts did. But he has subtly slid into a similar role when it comes to a level of importance.
A year ago, such a notion seemed far-fetched considering Verdugo's existence was limited to jogging on the back field while attempting to get his back in working order. He was a guy who had never played more than 106 games in a season, having just been introduced as a full-time major league the year before.
Yet, in his 53 games with the Red Sox the guy slated to make just more than $649,000 in 2021 showed enough to garner some pretty important responsibility.
Verdugo hit .308 with an .844 OPS and six homers, primarily hitting in the Sox' leadoff spot. He showed above-average skills in the field (falling into the 89th percentile on outfield jumps), while also impacting the game on the basepaths (going 4-for-4 on stolen base attempts).
The Red Sox have some interesting pieces they think can take a turn for the better, helping ease the burden of Rafael Devers, Xander Bogaerts and J.D. Martinez. Those guys are Franchy Cordero. Hunter Renfroe. Kiké Hernandez.
But Verdugo might be the most important piece of the entire lineup puzzle, particularly considering how much the Red Sox are banking on him.
"He’s an interesting person to say the least," Cora said. "His baseball IQ is way up there."
