Red Sox’ Rafael Devers poor start continues, breaking first 5 games strikeout record

It’s been a rough last six months or so for Boston Red Sox star Rafael Devers. First, his 2024 ended early due to a shoulder injury. Then, he lost his job at third base to free agent signing Alex Bregman, moving to designated hitter. Next, his spring training was shortened due to a slow ramp-up out of concern for his shoulders, avoiding surgery over the offseason but limiting him to just five games and 14 at-bats before the regular season.

Now, five games into the actual season, Devers is still searching for his first hit. Following an 0-for-3 performance with three more strikeouts in an 8-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Monday, Devers is 0-for-19 on the young season with 15 strikeouts, which is a record for the most strikeouts through the first five games of a season.

Red Sox manager Alex Cora doesn’t believe that Devers’ shoulder injury or his dislike of being moved from third base to designated hitter have caused his production to tank at the start of the season. Instead, Cora believes Devers’ issue is mechanical.

“It’s not the shoulder. It’s not the DH thing,” Cora told reporters, via NESN. “He was very vocal about it a few days ago, and the shoulder is fine. Now, it’s a matter of keep working hard and getting to the point of hitting the ball out in front. That’s it. If you look from the side, it’s behind, sometimes more than others.”

As Cora mentioned that Devers’ struggles wouldn’t have drawn as much attention had they happened in the middle of the season, he didn’t go into specifics on why his star slugger hasn’t gotten a hit yet. However, Devers’ stance is more open than it already was. His 73-degree stance angle is the widest in baseball so far this season, according to Baseball Savant. That could be potentially causing some timing issues for his swings, leading to his high number of whiffs this season.

Cora and the Red Sox’ staff are still trying to get to the root of Devers’ hitting woes, but he was encouraged by what he saw at the plate on Monday despite striking out three more times.

“There was one swing in the last at-bat that I was like, ‘OK, we’re getting there,’ — the foul ball to left field,” Cora told reporters, via MLB.com. “He was behind the ball, and he actually got the barrel to it. Good at-bat, too.

“So yeah, the strikeouts are up there. But the one thing — and we’ll find it mechanically — the good thing is that he’s not chasing pitches, you know? He’s swinging at pitches in the zone. Obviously the bad thing is he’s swinging and missing those pitches. But there were some positives today, and we just build from that. And hopefully, like I said yesterday, hopefully Wednesday is the day that he gets one, hits it and he can breathe and go from there.”

Whether Devers can turn it around in a hurry is unclear, as the change itself might be due to his lack of time to get back to where he needs to be in the spring, or as a reaction of some kind to the shoulder injuries. If he’s healthy like Cora says, though, and this is all just mechanical, then it’s something that can be worked out eventually. Considering just how good Devers is when he’s on – he hit .272/.354/.516 with 28 homers and a 134 wRC+ in an injury-shortened 2024 – the Red Sox have to hope that it happens sooner rather than later as they fell to 1-4 with Monday’s loss.

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