Man oh man, this kid’s good
Devers calmly adds triple play to start
The calm is not the first thing you notice about Rafael Devers. It’s the smile that stands out.
Joyful. Excitable. Surely without a care in the world.
Even with the massive arms and grown-man strength, Devers really does look like a kid out there. He’s 20 years old, six weeks removed from Double A, and the fact he’s just so happy to be here leaves quite the first impression.
The calm, though, is what you appreciate after watching Devers for three weeks.
The excitement is just a shell. Underneath is a ticking clock keeping perfect time
Last night, the Red Sox rookie third baseman started a triple play in the fourth inning of a 10-4 win against the St. Louis Cardinals. It wasn’t particularly hard. In fact, it couldn’t have been much easier with a sharp ground ball hit right to him and a slower-than-slow Yadier Molina chugging up the first base line.
Devers scooped, took one step back, stomped on third base and threw to second. He let his teammates take care of the rest. So simple, only one thing could have screwed it up: An excitable 20-year-old kid getting two steps ahead of himself and either botching the grounder, not thinking to step on the bag, not daring to throw to second or launching the ball into right field.
The fact Devers did none of the above doesn’t make him remarkable, but it makes him capable. It makes an extraordinary play perfectly ordinary, and that can’t be dismissed with a kid this young, this new and this highly touted.
“First thing that went through my mind was just to touch third base and throw as hard as I possibly could to second base,” Devers said. “Hopefully get a double play and maybe a triple play.”
Don’t get me wrong, the exciting stuff matters, too, and we’ve seen Devers do superhuman things these past three weeks. He hit a game-tying home run off a 102.8-mph pitch from Aroldis Chapman in the ninth inning Sunday night at Yankee Stadium, then he hit two home runs at Fenway Park the very next night.
No Red Sox player in the last 100 years had at least three home runs and 20 hits in his first 16 games, until Devers had five home runs and 21 hits in his.
So, yeah, the kid can do the big things. His power is every bit as good as advertised, and his approach is advanced beyond his years, and even his defense has been better than expected.
The physical tools, though, have been pretty obvious ever since scouting reports and minor league videos became available online. Devers is big and strong and he knows how to hit.
It’s the scouting equivalent of that 1,000-watt smile. It’s hard to miss.
What the Red Sox had to find out before making the decision to bring Devers to the big leagues was whether he could handle everything else. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said that was part of the reason Devers was promoted to Triple A in early July. It was a kind of test to see how he’d handle it.
Devers hit .400 while in Triple A, and the Red Sox decision makers were convinced he was ready for the inevitable big league bumps.
And he’s had them. They’re harder to notice beneath the .348 batting average and 13 RBI — including the first in last night’s blowout — but for a solid week and a half, Devers actually struggled. From the Aug. 2 rainout at Fenway against the Cleveland Indians through Friday’s series opener against the Yankees in New York, Devers hit .174 with seven strikeouts in six games.
That was nearly half his big league experience at that point, and he’d been held out of a game for the first time, and the slump came just as he was getting his first taste of the Sox-Yankees rivalry.
Very next game he had two hits. Then he came off the bench and hit that gametying homer off Chapman. Then the two-homer game at Fenway. Now the triple play with two more hits and an intentional walk last night.
“The presence of mind of Raffy, knowing the speed of the runner,” manager John Farrell said. “You could understand if a less experienced guy would have stepped on the bag and thrown across the diamond to first.”
Devers has not gotten ahead of himself. He hasn’t been demoralized by a little slump or intimidated by a huge fastball. He has neither hidden his excitement nor been controlled by it.
“Of course, there are certain times where the pressure is high and you have to make quick decisions,” Devers said. “And that just comes with the game.”
So, on a sharp ground ball, Devers scooped, took a step back, stomped on third base and threw to second. Because that’s what he was supposed to do. That’s what calm, collected, major leaguers do.
And if you haven’t noticed by now, Devers is all of the above.