Boston Red Sox: 3 areas to strengthen as season progresses

No. 2: Boston Red Sox fielding needs to get better

The Boston Red Sox fielding was expected to be a potential issue coming into the season, and boy has it ever been.

The Sox are averaging 0.74 errors per game, which is easily the worst in the league, and are 28th in the league with a .980 fielding percentage.

These costly mistakes haven’t really come back to bite this team so far, but you can’t continue to give opposing teams extra chances to drive in more runs. Shoring up the fielding on this team has to be something that is addressed as we approach the trade deadline.

Asking guys like Kike Hernandez and Marwin Gonzalez to play a different position basically every night hasn’t helped for sure, but even some of the everyday guys are struggling. Rafael Devers has continued to struggle at the hot corner, and you can basically count on someone in the outfield to make at least one head scratching play a night at this point.

Let’s take an example from last night’s win over the Rays. Francisco Mejia hit a ball into the gap between Devers and Xander Bogaerts, with Boogey eventually ranging into shallow left field to snag it. He really doesn’t have a play at this point, but tries to get a force out at second on the play anyways. The runner is safe, but Bogaerts throw is nowhere near Hernandez at second, and ends up sailing into right field, allowing another runner to score.

Issues like these are commonplace in the field for the Sox at this point. Later in this game, Devers would make an error of his own, which just so happened to be his 12th of the season. 12 errors at any position this stage in the season is just unacceptable, and it may be time to start exploring other areas for Devers in the field.

So what can be done to address this issue? It seems like an odd concept to trade for someone just for their fielding capabilities, but that may be an option for the Sox at this point. Or they can just put an added emphasis on reducing the number of mistakes in the field with practice, but that seemingly hasn’t done much for the defense so far.

There are guys who will be available at the trade deadline who could come in and help. Jose Iglesias or Nick Ahmed are great fielders playing for not so great teams that could help in the infield, and Victor Robles could be a guy to help in the outfield. Whatever the solution may be, it’s clear the Red Sox fielding needs to get cleaned up sooner rather than later.