Arroyo points out what helped
Credits Dalbec for batting tips
As Christian Arroyo rounded first base after hitting his first career postseason home run in Monday’s Game 3 victory, he made sure to find Bobby Dalbec in the Red Sox dugout and point at him in appreciation.
It wouldn’t have been possible without him.
In his first at-bat of the game in the second inning, Arroyo wasn’t satisfied with the output. With the bases loaded, he hit a sharp grounder to second that probably should have been an inning-ending double play. But Jose Altuve’s error kept the rally going before Kyle Schwarber’s grand slam sent the Red Sox on their way.
When Arroyo returned to the dugout, he found Dalbec, one of his best friends on the team. Without any homers or RBIs to his name in the postseason to that point, he felt like he may have been pressing a bit.
“(Dalbec) was like, ‘Well, what do you feel like you’re doing?’” Arroyo recalled. “I said, ‘Well, I’m on time. My contact is there, the exit velo’s there, I’m just hitting it down on the ground.’”
Dalbec, a rookie, had some veteran-like words of wisdom.
“He’s like, ‘Sometimes when I’m going through something like that, what I’ll do is maybe quiet up my moves,’ and so we looked at some video together and had seen a little bit of the postseason anxiousness. You look up there and you don’t see RBIs, you don’t have a homer and stuff, you want to start forcing the issue.
“And he was like, ‘Maybe what we should do is quiet your moves down and go from there.’ So I was like, ‘That’s actually a pretty good idea. Let me try that.’”
In his next at-bat the next inning, Arroyo put it to use. He jumped on a first-pitch slider from Yimi Garcia and sent it into the Monster seats.
The two-run homer — Arroyo’s first blast in three months — put the Sox up 9-0.
“As soon as I hit it, I was like, ‘Get up, get up, get up!’” Arroyo said. “And I tried to look back at Bob. I gave him a big hug and I was like, ‘You’re my favorite hitting coach.’”
“(Dalbec) was like, ‘I told you. Sometimes it’s that simple.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, hitting in the big leagues is so simple.’ But no, it was cool. Especially for him because he hasn’t been playing and whatnot. It is what it is, but he’s a great teammate. He’s one of my best friends on the team and we talk all the time about hitting and all that kind of stuff. For him to do that, to look over that in the middle of the game, it was awesome.”
Dalbec hasn’t started a game since Game 1 of the ALDS, but he’s clearly staying engaged and embracing his role. For now, that means staying prepared on the bench in case he’s needed as a pinch-hitter, and supporting his teammates with whatever advice he can provide. Even though Dalbec only just finished his first full season in the big leagues, Arroyo is listening.
“That’s a team player,” Arroyo said. “It takes an army to win this stuff. It’s not just one guy. … Any time that you can help in one way, shape or form, it just builds confidence within everyone. To know you have someone that’s not even involved in the game at that time, to still invest in it and try to help you out, it’s awesome.”
Arroyo said he and Dalbec have built a bond ever since getting to know each other at the Red Sox’ alternate site last season, and playing first and second base regularly together over the course of their first full seasons in Boston.
They regularly share hitting thoughts together, and Arroyo is very impressed with Dalbec’s acumen.
“Bobby’s very, very advanced when it comes to the mental side of it and the mechanical side of what he’s trying to do,” Arroyo said. “He has a very good idea of what he’s trying to do. To lean on somebody like that, that knows what they’re trying to do and then sometimes, I know what he’s doing and he can see what I’m doing and we just bounce that off each other.”