Hope to catch a Blake
Feels like final opportunity for Swihart
FORT MYERS — None of this should have mattered. Not in the middle of February. Not with a college kid on the mound. Not with so little, really, on the line.
But Blake Swihart hit a booming fly ball yesterday, and he might have been the only guy on the field who really needed it.
The center fielder never came close to catching it, and as the ball bounced into the triangle, Swihart sprinted around second base without slowing down. He slid feet-first for an RBI triple that will never again show up in his statistics.
It shouldn’t have mattered, not one little bit, but you wouldn’t know it from the way Swihart talked.
“See my smile?” he said. “It feels good.”
No player on the bubble makes the team with one good game, and no spring training base hit erases two years of injury and disappointment, but Swihart defies convention. At least, at this point he does.
Once one of the most highly touted prospects in the game, he’s now fighting for the 25th spot on the roster, and he has no clear role to play if he makes it. But the Red Sox are putting time and effort into customizing his workout schedule to maximize opportunity.
He hit just .190 in Triple A last season, and he’s been hurt the past two years, but the Red Sox still talk about his impact potential as if the luster of a first-round pick is just waiting to shine through.
Swihart was the starting catcher for the exhibition opener against Northeastern, and he’ll be back in the lineup, at one position or another, for most of these early spring training games.
If you’re betting on the Red Sox leader in spring training at-bats, Swihart would be a smart choice.
“I just grabbed him and said, ‘Hey man, be ready to play,’ ” manager Alex Cora said. “Back-to-back days, get on that bus, and you’ll play.”
Left unspoken, apparently, was this: Play like he did yesterday and Swihart will be on the roster.
“I’m getting opportunities,” he said. “It’s my job to go out there and prove myself and prove I’m ready to go and prove I can help this team win. So, that’s what I want to do.”
Swihart was supposed to be past this by now. He was a first-round pick in 2011, hit .274 as a call-up in 2015, made the Opening Day roster as a catcher in 2016, moved to left field just a few weeks into that season, needed ankle surgery after sliding into the wall that June, then struggled through recurring ankle and finger issues last season.
He turns 26 in April, he’s out of options, and this feels like a last chance with the Red Sox.
“It’s almost like a tryout for me,” Swihart said. “I want to go out there and treat it like that, just go out there and do everything I know I can do.”
Part of that tryout is literally trying out different positions. Swihart goes through catching drills every day, and that’s still his primary position. But with Christian Vazquez and Sandy Leon pretty well entrenched at the top of the depth chart, Swihart will have to do more than catch.
He basically alternates his days between doing additional work in the outfield and the infield. He started learning left field in 2016 and said he’s still relatively comfortable out there even after the injury.
“Maybe if I get to Fenway … I might go punch the wall a little bit,” he said.
Late last season, Swihart started playing first base as well. He still takes ground balls there, and the Red Sox haven’t ruled out the idea of trying him at second base, banking on his athleticism and experience as a high school shortstop to help him learn the position quickly.
“It’s been seven years since I’ve done it, so I need to get reps at it again,” Swihart said. “But there’s some (drills) where I do something and I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, I used to do this with my hand on this part of the groundball, or to my left, I did this.’ It’s kind of coming back slowly.”
Cora said he’s planning to have Swihart at catcher, outfield and designated hitter during this first week of exhibition games. He’d like to see Swihart in the infield later this spring.
Recent additions Eduardo Nunez and J.D. Martinez give the Red Sox enough depth and flexibility that they could carry Swihart, even without an obvious role for him to play. They’d be covered at every position, so Swihart could simply fit in wherever there’s opportunity.
And right now, it’s all about opportunity. Lots and lots of opportunity.
“Love it,” Swihart said. “Especially when I’m healthy, I love playing.”