Mike Napoli Can't Stop Crushing Baseballs, As New Lineup Continues To Roll
On today’s episode of Mike Napoli Is Hitting The Shit Out of the Ball, we were joined by special guest Hector Santiago, who served up Napoli’s fifth home run in the last six games.
Napoli went 2-for-3 in the series finale on Sunday, launching yet another home run — that the Red Sox announced had traveled 451 feet — and doubled off the wall in left-center to drive in four of Boston’s six runs. That marks three straight games with a home run for Napoli, which would be a career-best for most players, but Nap actually went deep in five straight games in April of 2012 with the Texas Rangers. Napoli had a half decent home stand, hitting .429 with an OPS of 1.690, while driving in 10 of the 25 runs that the Red Sox scored over their last six games.
Xander Bogaerts has earned his promotion in the lineup with four hits today, which ties his career high. He’s now hit in seven straight games, batting .440 over that span. I still think he should get bumped up to the two-spot at some point, but it’s good to see him excelling after being moved higher in the batting order.
Wade Miley, AKA the Swamp Monster, lost his bid for a perfect game with two outs in the fifth inning, but still went on to pitch eight masterful innings of one-run ball, getting 11 outs on the ground for the second time in his last three starts. Over Miley’s last five starts, he’s thrown at least six innings in all of them, and has a 2.60 ERA over that clip. While the Red Sox had a really shitty start mixed in on this home stand from Rick Porcello on Friday night (4.1 IP, 7 ER), it proved to be just a hiccup in the middle of a great run for this pitching staff. Red Sox starters have turned in a quality start in nine of their last eleven times out, posting a 2.72 ERA. Red Sox starters had accumulated just eight quality starts through the team’s first 26 games prior to the run they’re on now.
With as many positives as there were to take from Sunday’s game, perhaps one of the most notable aspects had slipped under the radar. That would be that Pablo Sandoval came off the bench to pinch hit in the bottom of the eighth inning to face a left-handed pitcher, and he didn’t bat right-handed. Not only did he hit from the left side against a left-handed pitcher, but he actually got a hit and drove in a run. Maybe now he’ll realize that it’s time to ditch hitting from the right side, where he’s 2-for-41 with 12 strikeouts this year.