Narron all in on 2020 season
While some players around baseball have opted out of the season due to their own priorities and some older coaches won’t be participating because of the risks involved, the Red Sox’ two 60-something coaches will be in the dugout come Opening Day on July 24.
Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke, 63, admitted before summer camp that the pandemic has made him uncomfortable, but he will still manage. His sidekick, 64-year-old bench coach Jerry Narron, never considered sitting out the 60-game season.
“None,” Narron said when asked if he had thoughts of staying home. “You know, while I was home, I tried to keep up the best I possibly could with COVID, what was going on with it, who was getting sick. Who was recovering, that type of thing. For me, I think if I had some kind of pre-existing condition, I may have been a little apprehensive.
“But I’m healthy, or I think I’m healthy. I don’t have anything pre-existing so I felt pretty comfortable doing it. I know we’ve taken plenty of precautions and we’re probably safer here than we are anywhere else.”
That’s good news for the Red Sox, who are soaking up the wealth of knowledge and experience that Roenicke and Narron are able to provide. Narron was the Red Sox’ bench coach in 2003, and even if things haven’t been quite the same in his return, he’s embracing the opportunity. As the bench coach, he’s responsible for coming up with the team’s daily schedule, which has certainly been a challenge.
“It’s definitely different, but you know coming into this, I’ve always had the idea of embracing the challenge, the chaos,” Narron said. “I think we’ve done a pretty good job of it. With the protocols, we have to stagger times out there on the field and keep the distancing. But for the most part, it’s worked out real well. We’ve tried to use any empty time we can getting extra guys some batting practice or that type of thing.”
Roenicke has certainly welcomed Narron’s presence in what is a strange and unprecedented period.
““He’s so good at his job that he’s been on top of, without a doubt, the most difficult training camp to try to schedule,” Roenicke said. “He’s really good at that. We still talk about it daily, what we want to do. I think he gets along with people well. He coaches the right way, even in spring training, connected with them. He is familiar with a few of the people here when he coached here before, so he’s fitting in well, but I just like the experience that he has, and any question that I run by him, he usually has a pretty smart answer about it.”
First intrasquad game set for today
The Red Sox’ first intrasquad game will be today at 2 p.m. at Fenway and is expected to last 5K innings. Nathan Eovaldi and Chris Mazza will be the starting pitchers, with Eovaldi throwing four or five innings and Mazza throwing two, Roenicke said.
The Red Sox will continue to have intrasquad games that will progress with later start times throughout camp. Each game will last at least four innings as the Red Sox try to get their pitchers stretched out.
Benintendi feeling comfortable
After battling inconsistency at the plate last season, Andrew Benintendi is looking forward to finally putting it behind him. The left fielder, who’s expected to be the Red Sox’ leadoff hitter, said his swing feels good and has tweaked some things mechanically to improve his performance at the plate.
“I’ve faced live pitching the last two days, felt comfortable, swing felt good,” Benintendi said. “Now it’s just getting the timing back and obviously that will come with facing more pitching, so I’m still putting the work in the cage, but yeah, I feel that my swing is in a better spot than it was leaving spring training.”
Peraza impresses
Roenicke said no player has looked drastically different since the Red Sox shut down camp in Fort Myers in March, but he’s been impressed with how new second baseman’s Jose Peraza’s bat has looked.
“His swings are unbelievable how good they are,” Roenicke said. “I thought the changes that he made in the three months that we were off really are benefiting him so far. We’ll see how it works once we start these games, but in batting practice, his load is completely different. I asked him if he was working with somebody. I know Tim (Hyers) was staying in touch with him, and Pete (Fatse), but he’s doing some things with his load now to really help him... I’m so impressed with what he’s doing compared to what I saw when we were in Florida.”