Boston Red Sox: The hottest hitters at the plate – July edition
By Connor Floyd
We’ve reached the halfway point of the 2021 MLB season and the Boston Red Sox are sitting pretty at the top of the American League with over 52-31, which puts them on pace to end the season at 100-62.
Pretty darn good for a team in a “bridge year” as Chaim Bloom put it before the season started.
Let’s take a look at who’s been contributing the most at the dish for the Red Sox so far.
Who’s hot on the Boston Red Sox
In his ninth season as the Red Sox shortstop, Xander Bogaerts is having his best season yet. He’s batting .330 with a .391 on base percentage and a .551 slugging percentage, all of which being top 15 numbers in the whole league. Xander also leads the team with 26 multi-hit games this season. He’s the de facto captain and, without a doubt, the MVP of the team right now.
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If Xander keeps this up, the Red Sox will continue to be a very hard team to outscore, and he’ll receive MVP consideration at the end of the season.
Rafael Devers has been manning the hot corner fairly well this season, but we all know his greatest strength is when a bat is in his hands.
Devers has shaken off a poor 2020 campaign by smashing 20 homers this season, good for sixth in the MLB, and leading the league in RBI with 69.
The strikeouts still and likely always will be an issue for Devers. Kid just can’t lay off the high fastball to save his life sometimes.
But overall, Devers is the beating heart of this lineup and he puts runs on the board better than anyone in the MLB right now.
Even after a cold June by his standards, JD Martinez is still the third best hitter on this ball club at the halfway mark of the season.
He’s still batting over .300, getting on base at a .368 clip, and the long ball is still his speciality with a slugging percentage of .550. He’s been a hitting machine from the day he stepped into Fenway Park and this season has been no different.
Boston Red Sox: Who’s hot right now
Hunter Renfroe has been a solid addition to the lineup all season long, but he’s been an absolute menace in the last two weeks. In the last twelve games, Renfroe has 14 hits – four of them being home runs – and 12 RBI.
He’s not likely to maintain that pace given his career numbers, but the fact is that Renfroe is in the middle of a career year and it seems like it could get even better.
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Kike Hernandez has been unstoppable since coming back from an injury. He’s hit two lead off home runs in the past week, and his on base percentage is over .400 in the last 11 games he’s played.
This is an extremely welcome change of pace given the state of the Red Sox lead off spot lately. Any bats that heat up other than 2-5 in the lineup would make the Red Sox a very hard team to beat.