Sox give full support to ‘Team Kevin’

Chris Young had every reason to pound his chest. He’d been trusted with a rare start against a righthanded pitcher, and he’d delivered two home runs, his first two-homer game in nearly a year.

In the dugout, though, Young didn’t pound his chest. He turned to the television camera and unbuttoned his jersey to reveal the logo on his chest: “I Support Team Kevin” in white letters above a baseball with the No. 78.

Those blue T-shirts have become a staple of the Red Sox clubhouse during this road trip, a team-wide show of support for minor league pitcher Kevin Steen, who was critically injured in a car crash late last month.

Young gave the shirts heavy exposure with his dugout reveal on Saturday, but they continue to make appearances day after day. Just yesterday, catcher Christian Vazquez was wearing one while dealing cards pregame around a table with Young, Dustin Pedroia and Xander Bogaerts.

“This is a brotherhood,” rookie reliever Ben Taylor said. “He’s one of our brothers. He’s going through a tough time right now, and we just want to have him on our minds.”

Steen is 20 years old and still in the lower levels of the Red Sox minor league system, but some players in the big league clubhouse know him and describe his personality as friendly and outgoing.

“In spring training, he’d always come and hang out,” outfielder Andrew Benintendi said. “Obviously there’s two different sides in spring training, so he’d always come over and hang out. He’d do some things away from the field with us, like go to an (Florida Gulf Coast) basketball game. I actually played with him in Lowell, I believe, at first, and he was always just in a good mood, joking around. It’s unfortunate. You know, we’re all just thinking about him and praying for him.”

On April 26, Steen was struck in a head-on collision that left him with extensive lower-body injuries. He was initially described as being in critical condition, and a fund-raiser web page in his name says that he’s already undergone surgeries on his hip and both knees.

“With his baseball future in doubt and impending medical bills piling up, Kevin’s friends have started this page to help ease the burden on the Steen family,” the YouCaring website says.

“It’s a terrible thing that happened,” Taylor said. “It puts into perspective that this is just a game, you know? There’s life outside of it, and it’s a guy that we knew, and we might not have known him personally, but he’s a part of our organization. It could have been us. It could have been me. It could have been anyone here. It’s something that we want to be aware of, and we want to keep him on our minds.”

The physical representation of keeping Steen on their minds comes from the blue T-shirts that were hanging in every player’s locker in the weekend series in Minnesota, where Young had his big day and gave the shirts a televised platform. In the clubhouse, those shirts are a constant reminder that one of the Red Sox’ own has a long road ahead, and the shirts are messages of support.

“Even if it’s someone not in our organization, it stinks to hear that,” Benintendi said. “From what I’ve heard, he’s not in critical condition anymore, so that’s good. I don’t know where it goes from here, but he’s alive, and that’s all that matters.”