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Red Sox’ self-admitted slow starter off to his best start ever and it’s not even close
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- Red Sox’ self-admitted slow starter off to his best start ever and it’s not even close
TORONTO — Red Sox third baseman Alex Bregman is a self-admitted slow starter.
He has a career March/April OPS of .767, 51 points lower than his second worst career month.
But he's on absolute fire here during the first month of his first season with the Red Sox .
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"You look at the numbers now, the on-base percentage is over .400," manager Alex Cora said.
Bregman went 3-for-5 with a homer and three runs to help lead the Red Sox 10-2 over the Blue Jays here at Rogers Centre on Tuesday.
The 31-year-old — who agreed to a three-year, $120 million contract (with two player opt outs) in February — is batting .331 with a .401 on-base percentage, .570 slugging percentage, .971 OPS, six homers, 11 doubles, 23 RBIs, 22 runs, 12 walks and 25 strikeouts in 30 games.
This is by far his best ever March/April. His OPS is 394 points higher than it was during the first month of the 2024 season. It's 274 points higher than it was during March/April 2023.
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Only two other times in his career has he posted a March/April OPS over .800. He had a .838 OPS in 2021 and .889 mark in 2019.
He had a .650 OPS in March/April 2017 when Cora was the Astros ' bench coach.
"He worked hard in the offseason," Cora said. "He felt like last year he was off, especially early in the season, swinging more. Swinging at the edges of the strike zone."
Bregman did some things differently mechanically the past few years. He and the hitting coaches watched video during spring training and worked on getting back to the mechanics he had earlier in his career . He said that has made a difference "for sure."
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"We looked at a lot of different things whether it's the timing or the mechanics or the setup or the load or how I was getting into the hitting position, what time I was getting into the hitting position," Bregman said.
He said reviewing older videos gave him a baseline for his mechanics when he was at his best.
"Put my head down and got in the cage, got with our hitting coaches and got after it," he said. "I feel like there's still room for improvement in a lot of areas. I feel like some days it's consistent, some days it's not. But just more so falling in love with the process of the work before the game and just going and having fun on the field."
Cora pointed out that Bregman is driving the ball hard and also hitting it to the opposite field more than he usually does.
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The third baseman ranks in the 96th percentile among big league hitters in squared-up percentage (36.8%). His average exit velocity (92.2 mph) is in the 84th percentile.
He's also hardly chasing pitches. He's in the 98th percentile in chase percentage (16.9%) and 93rd percentile in whiff percentage (14.7%).
"He's a complete hitter and like I said in the (introductory) press conference, it's more than hitting at Fenway," Cora said. "This kid, he understands what he needs to do to be successful. And so far, so good."
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Read the original article on MassLive .
