I visited the “Most Beloved Ballpark” on May 30 to see the Boston Red Sox play the Reds during a crisper-than-usual May night. The game was the first home contest for Boston after a two-week west coast trip in which they finished a meager 4-5 but won respective series against the underachieving Padres and overachieving Diamondbacks.
With the Sox back at Fenway, I thought that a contest with Cincinnati would be a much-needed breather after facing the gauntlet on the Pacific. My naivety, however, was exposed rather quickly. I watched a feisty Reds team use patience and attrition to grind at-bats out and push Brayan Bello to almost 50 pitches through two innings before annihilating the Red Sox bullpen in the mid-to-late-innings to take an 8-0 lead.
The Sox battled their way back but eventually lost 9-8 after a Triston Casas strikeout. A few in-game adjustments from Alex Cora and maybe a few less walks probably would’ve shifted the game in the other direction, but it was two defensive plays from Shortstop Kiké Hernández that stuck out in my mind after the game.
The first play happened in the third inning when Hernandez stabbed a hard grounder from Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson before rifling an errant ball to Casas, forcing him off first base.
Red Sox shortstops in the last 30 years that had 10 errors before June:
1. Kiké Hernández
2. Julio Lugo— Steve Perrault (@Steve_Perrault) May 31, 2023
The second came in the sixth inning when Hernández fielded another ground ball with runners on first and second and one out. A tailor-made double play turned into a ball in the outfield as Hernandez missed an even easier throw to Emmanuel Valdez, who played second that night.
The two errors combined only cost the Sox one run, but the plays made me think more broadly about the team’s issues at one of the more turbulent positions in baseball: shortstop.
The Boston Red Sox Have a Shortstop Conundrum
Some Context
It’s no secret that the loss of superstar Xander Bogaerts left Boston in a tenuous position. They signed Trevor Story to a lucrative deal with the expectation that he would be the Red Sox shortstop of the team’s future, but recent internal brace surgery has forced him to the sidelines for most of the 2023 season.
Platoon replacement Yu Chang is also currently on the IL, which forced the Sox to trade for former Athletics player Pablo Reyes to rotate with Hernández.
The instability has left Alex Cora, who said the team is “100 %” building Story back up to play short, in a precarious position.
Red Sox outs above average rankings by infield position.
1B Triston Casas (35th of 38)
2B Enmanuel Valdez (43rd out of 46)
SS Kiké Hernández (38th out of 40)
3B Rafael Devers (18th out of 41)Xander Bogaerts, incidentally, is first overall at shortstop.
— John Tomase (@jtomase) June 1, 2023
Hernández’s performance at short
Hernández has proven to be a critical part of Boston’s success in the past. He batted .417 during the Red Sox improbable 2021 playoff run and carried a whopping 1.291 OPS across 48 plate appearances, functioning as the latest Boston folk hero in a slew of them.
But after dealing with a frightening hip injury last year, Hernández was thrust into a position he barely played throughout his career. Hernandez only played 100 games at shortstop during his nine-year tenure with the Dodgers.
So far, Hernández, who mostly plays as a utility guy, hasn’t found much of a groove at shortstop for the Red Sox.
According to Baseball Savant, Enrique ranks in the second percentile when it comes to Outs Above Average, which calculates the amount of outs a fielder has saved on their team. Statistically, he is having the second worst defensive year of his career in that regard.
This isn’t an outlier either. By looking at his past defensive stats at shortstop, one will notice that the entirety of his shortstop career has essentially been in the negative for Outs Above Average. Those two plays against the Reds don’t appear to be an outlier.
When you compare Hernández’s defensive stats at shortstop to others in the league, the numbers are even more ominous. Currently, he leads shortstops in errors with 11 and ranks bottom five in some of the advanced stat categories like defensive efficiency ratio and defensive runs saved.
What does this mean right now?
Well, it means the Sox have a shortstop problem, which should come as no surprise considering unforeseen Story injury. Hernández was forced into one of the toughest infield positions and it is clear he still needs to find his footing in that area of his game.
That said, the Red Sox traded for Reyes to supplement some of these issues and keep Hernández as the utility player, where the positional flexibility usually suits him better.
While the sample size is extremely small, Reyes has already committed 11 assists and 0 errors in 33 innings at short with the Red Sox, which is already more promising than Hernández’s .920 fielding percentage at short, which ranks last amongst qualified players.
Will Story return and bring better fielding?
Hard to tell when you consider how Bogaerts still functioned as Boston’s regular shortstop during the 2022 season. Bogaerts ranked fifth in fielding percentage last year and ranks second this year.
In six seasons with Colorado, Story ranked eighth out of 20th in fielding percentage at shortstop and obtained the sixth most errors amongst qualified candidates across those years. So, he was fine, but not necessarily a vacuum.
Even a middling defensive season from Story will be better than what we’ve seen so far. The Reyes trade was good, but he doesn’t have enough experience yet to make him a full-time shortstop, and I’ve already lamented about Hernández’s performance so far. Because the Red Sox are invested in Story at shortstop for the long term, they will most likely not make a trade at the deadline for another player at that position.
Alex Cora reiterates on @GreshFauriaWEEI that when Trevor Story returns he will be the shortstop of the Red Sox
— Rob Bradford (@bradfo) May 31, 2023
With so much hitting currently at their disposal, it will be interesting to see what the Sox do with utility guys like Hernández. With Duvall close to returning (remember, he had the highest OPS in the league before he went down), and Jarren Duran taking big leaps, Boston will likely have to move off someone. There is also the looming rise of heralded prospect Marcelo Mayer that can’t be forget about.
How will Hernández’s recent struggles affect all of those shifting factors? I’m sure we will find out as the season continues.
Photo Credit- Kyle Ross- USA TODAY Sports
