BOSTON — Rafael Devers and Eduardo Nunez are a combined headshake. You can’t watch the two new infielders dominate nightly and not, at some point, react. It may be very minor: an eye roll, a shrug. But you’re lying if you’ve been watching for the last week and say otherwise.
Heck, Devers can’t even believe it.
“I didn't think it would be this good,” Devers said. “But at the same time I put in the work and worked so hard to get good results and I think that's what we're seeing.”
The third baseman knocked a two-run homer into the Monster seats in Thursday’s 9-5 win over the White Sox, an easy opposite field shot for the 20-year-old. What makes his performance particularly stunning actually goes beyond the .406 average.
It’s the .486 on-base percentage through an eight-game on-base streak to start his career. It’s the walks.
A 20-year-old hitter shouldn’t command the strike zone this way. His strikeout-to-walk ratio is 6-to-5.
“If the ball is outside, I try my best to hit it in that direction,” Devers said. “That doesn't mean if I hit an inside fastball I'm not going to try and turn on it and go the other way.”
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Sounds easy!
The last time the Sox offense was producing as it has this homestand was before the All-Star Break. Then the team went into a collective slump afterward, right when many thought they were primed to run away with the American League East.
What’s happened now is the pendulum has swung back the other way: a collective hot streak.
Remember, though, that these don’t last. Most games, you have some hitters who are hot and some who are cold. The extremes are rarer, and never sustained.
So when it comes to someone like Nunez, who’s been fantastic, you know at some point he’ll return to his career norm. Or at least, he should. He’s hitting .466 in his last 10 games, dating back to his time with the Giants.
Devers, too, might find that there’s a book on him pretty quickly.
Andrew Benintendi, who had a terrific night Thursday, has fought the book firsthand lately. He went 3-for-3 with a walk and an HBP Thursday after a couple days off, given to him so he could collect himself and review what’s been going on.
“There's a book on me and I'm trying to figure out what it is and you know it's both ways,” Benintendi said. “I’ve got a scouting report on the pitcher. So it's kind of a game like that. It just kind of goes back and forth and it's always going to be changing so I've just got to adjust.”
For now, Devers and Nunez are everything the Sox needed. But when they cool off, it’ll be up to some of the old guard — guys like Benintendi, and Mitch Moreland and Christian Vazquez — to not totally cool off as well. The extremes have been confusing, and the Sox need some middle-ground stability.