Who and what is Hunter Renfroe? That's what Major League Baseball has been trying to find out since the outfielder came into the bigs back in 2016.
Renfroe was always useful. The fact that he now has 100 major league home runs in 454 games will suggest that. But was there more? To a certain extent, the Red Sox were banking on ... even if it's just a few less swings and misses, and a few more times on base while still hitting those home runs once every 15 at-bats.
The last few games, the Red Sox have been getting their wish.
With the narrative that the biggest problem facing these first-place Red Sox is the bottom third of their batting order pounding Alex Cora's team over its collective head, one of the targeted participants, Renfroe, has done his part to change that conversation.
Renfroe highlighted a fairly ugly 11-7 Red Sox win over the hapless Tigers Tuesday night at Fenway Park with a single, double a home run. In the last three games, the athletic outfielder has pushed his batting average from .167 to .222 and OPS fro m.485 to .664.
"Any time you’re a baseball player, you want to see some hits fall. But it was good to stay with my approach," said Renfroe, whose was joined in the Red Sox' home run parade by fellow outfielders Alex Verdugo, and Enrique Hernandez along with Xander Bogaerts. "I knew it was going to work out. I knew that some balls were going to fall eventually. It’s all I can do – go in there, work hard, keep hitting it, and they’ll fall."
“He’s been swinging the bat well. It started in Texas," Cora added. "He hit the home run, but then like we said earlier today, he got two hits the opposite way. He put the ball in play, and today he did the same thing. Even the out was a good swing going to the opposite field. He’s in a good place now. It looks like he’s having confidence. He’s seeing the ball better, and it seems like good things are going to happen.”
There is a ways to go before the Red Sox truly know what they have in Renfroe. This is, after all, a hitter who hit just .216 the last time (2019) he was counted on to play the much. (Although that season with the Padres, there were those 33 home runs.)
He certainly fits Fenway Park's right field well in terms of range and a throwing arm. And if the foundation of the Sox' lineup keeps hitting like it has been, there will be a certain amount of patience allowed for those roller-coaster stretches.
But, let's be honest, there is a reason the Red Sox entered this season putting their faith in the best version of Renfroe: They need him.
With left-handed-hitting Verdugo as the outfields staple, the Sox truly were counting on, at very least, Renfroe to be their righty-hitting go-to guy out there. And if there were some hiccups in games he had to play against right-handed pitching, so be it. At least the Red Sox would have his range.
So far, overall the plan has been good enough, with the Red Sox leading the American League in runs while managing virtually the same batting average an OPS against righties and lefties.
Still, there needs to be more of the kind of progress shown by Renfroe. The Red Sox still own the worst OPS of any team out of the No. 7 spot (where Christian Arroyo went 0-for-4 against the Tigers). And the No. 9 position sits at fourth-worst, with a myriad of pitcher-hitting National League teams in front of them.
Now, however, it would seem that Renfroe at the very least is becoming more of the solution than the problem. And for the Red Sox team, that's all they should be asking for.
"You got guys in the bottom of the lineup that hit the ball .500 feet, I think that's pretty special that not a lot of people have," Renfroe said. "With the speed that Franchy (Cordero) has and stuff like that, if he ever gets going, you know, I think that's going to be a huge offensive help for everybody, and just take the load off of (Xander) Bogaerts, and J.D. (Martinez) and those guys at the top of the lineup knowing that they don't have to necessarily be on their A game when you’ve got guys at the bottom of the lineup picking up their slack.”
