Boston Red Sox: 3 unexpected contributors to the team’s winning stretch
Boston Red Sox unexpected contributor No. 2: Christian Vazquez
Nobody has ever really expected much from Christian Vazquez throughout his career with the Red Sox. He’s never really been anything other than a league-average catcher, aside from 2019 when he smacked 23 home runs. He’s regressed ever since that season at the plate, and he started 2022 being even worse than he was last season when he hit .258 with just six home runs.
Vazquez entered the month of May with a .220 batting average, and watched it dip as low as .208 early in the month. Just a few weeks later, Vazquez is now batting .302. His counting stats still remain low (he has just two homers and 20 RBI’s) but it seems unlikely Vazquez is ever going to reach the heights of his 2019 campaign ever again.
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Again, the expectation for Vazquez was really for him to come in and just be a steady presence behind the plate. He’s doing that on defense, and now he’s hitting at a more than healthy clip to go along with that. Vazquez has five multi-hit outings over his past eight games after having just three in the previous 28 games.
Now it’s probably unreasonable to expect Vazquez to continue hitting at a .300 clip for the rest of the season, but if he can hover at the .270-.280 range, that’s a victory for Boston. Vazquez has done a great job of keeping the bottom of Boston’s lineup moving as of late, and he’s setting up the top of the lineup with run-scoring opportunities that they are currently taking advantage of. There isn’t much more you can ask for from this gritty veteran catcher.