Sox consider X factor
Cora sees big things with healthy Bogaerts at short
FORT MYERS — The new manager sees greatness in his shortstop, but that doesn’t mean Xander Bogaerts needs a total makeover.
Bogaerts says he’s developed the awareness not to play through every injury. He has the desire to be a leader with a similar style as David Ortiz. And Alex Cora already spotted a couple of adjustments that could put him into the elite category of shortstops again.
The tools are there for the 25-yearold shortstop to put a mediocre season behind him.
“I’m not saying I’m going out and hitting 60 (homers) like (Giancarlo) Stanton or something, but I can definitely go out there and put up the same numbers as 2016, maybe a little bit better,” Bogaerts said yesterday at JetBlue Park.
A bigger, stronger and wiser Bogaerts has been one of the players that Cora has seemed most excited about coaching.
He was a Silver Slugger two years in a row and a first-time All-Star in 2016, when he hit .294 with 21 homers and an .802 OPS while playing arguably the best defense he’s played as a big leaguer.
He began the 2017 season on a tear, hitting .337 at the end of May.
By the end of June, it was down to .314. By the end of August, his average fell to .282. He finished at .273.
Bogaerts said it was a mistake to play hurt after he took a 93-mph fastball to the right hand in early July and was back in the lineup two days later. He now regrets it. “Honestly, a little bit,” he said. “A little bit, honestly. But that’s just who I am. I enjoy playing baseball. If I have something broken, that’s probably the only way I won’t be in the lineup. To a point, I do regret it, but it’s over with. You live and you learn. It’s a new year, so now you can deal with stuff better.”
Rest was rare under manager John Farrell, who liked to push his young shortstop to play daily. But Bogaerts said he would have benefited from time off.
“It definitely would have,” he said. “We were in the heat of things, we were pushing for the playoffs. You don’t want to be the guy on the bench not being able to help your team to win. You learn, and I definitely did.”
His hand has healed in the offseason, as has his spirit.
After admitting that the Red Sox clubhouse wasn’t always happy in 2017, Bogaerts says he wants to become a leader akin to Ortiz, who retired after 2016.
Ortiz was one of the veterans who Bogaerts remembers treating him so well in 2013, when he was called up to the bigs as a 20-year-old.
“He was one of those guys where, whenever you see something go wrong, he’s that guy to talk about it openly and try to fix it right away,” Bogaerts said. “Those are special guys. They’re special from a young age. Hopefully we can have some guys step up. I know we definitely have guys that can step up and have a great year.
“I’m looking forward to it after that challenge. Hopefully I can be in those shoes one day, be kind of like a David, personality-wise.”
On the field, Bogaerts has a few adjustments to make, Cora said.
“I was able to talk to Xander a little bit just about angles,” said Cora, a former shortstop. “Defense is about angles. Last year, watching him, his errors came, he was in between balls. He wasn’t just missing the balls on short hops. It was like long hops. We’re going to try to clean that up. He’s still a good infielder.”
Bogaerts was noticeably more patient at the plate last year, swinging at a career-low 42 percent of the pitches he saw, which Cora thinks might have worked against him.
“We can’t have bad takes at the plate,” Cora said. “A bad take for me, I learned last year is like, if you’re a good fastball hitter and you take a fastball right down the middle, that’s a bad take. Don’t just take pitches just to take pitches. I know the game will dictate what you do sometimes, but there’s nothing wrong to go hunt the first pitch that you can drive, put a good swing on it, and you hit a rocket to center field and it’s one out.
“People will go, ‘One pitch, one out.’ But that was a missile. It doesn’t matter. All you want to do as a hitter is hit the ball solid, and that’s what we want from him, either it’s pitch 1 or pitch 18 of an at-bat. You do that and you’ll be fine.”