While Terry Francona stated quite often during spring training that Marce Scutaro was his starting shortstop, Scutaro’s slow start combined with Jed Lowrie‘s intensely hot start have forced a switch. This quote from Francona (via Gordon Edes’s ESPNBoston.com blog post) pretty much sums it up.
“I kind of said, ‘We view Jed as a starting player but not right now. Well, when you hit .450, I think it’s my responsibility to put him in the lineup, at least most, a lot of the time. I don’t think [Scutaro] likes it very much and I actually don’t blame him, because he’s done everything we’ve asked.
“But I’ve got a responsibility to do what is right.’’
Francona tried to show some loyalty toward Scutaro, but at this point Lowrie absolutely deserves a shot to play everyday or at least nearly everyday. No, Lowrie isn’t going to continue to hit at such a torrid pace, but even a normalized batting line would probably be an upgrade over Scutaro over the long-run.
ZiPS rest of season projections for both Lowrie and Scutaro
Lowrie: 305 PA, .268/.345/.449, 8 HR, 2 SB
Scutaro: 488 PA, .268/.339/.373, 6 HR, 6 SB
Interestingly, ZiPS sees both hitting for the same AVG going forward. However, Lowrie should easily trump Scutaro in the SLG department and should at least come close to Scutaro with regards to OBP.
Projecting a .268 AVG for Lowrie going forward may seem a bit nuts. After all, Lowrie is hitting .390 with three long balls on the young season. His AVG has clearly been helped by a BABIP around .400 and I have had my doubts in the past about Lowries ability to maintain a high AVG based on his tendency to hit the ball in the air a bit too much. Lowrie’s current fly-ball rate is 47 percent and his career fly-ball rate (554 at-bats) is 50 percent. His current 55 at-bat sample size is way too small to draw a definite conclusion from, but his early batted ball data is in line with his career numbers.
Regardless of whether Lowrie hits .268 or not the rest of the way, he should still play good enough defense and have plenty of extra base-hits.
Extra base hits have not been something that has occurred very frequently from Boston’s catching duo of Jason Varitek and Jarrod Saltalamacchia. V-Tek has only three hits in 33 at-bats, one being a double. Salty has out doubled Tek…by one.
We all knew that trusting Salty as the starting catcher duties would be a risk. Now, Salty is finding starting games to be less frequent of an occurrence.
My issues with Salty as a starting catcher have less to do with his .186/.255/.233 line and more about his play on the defensive end. Salty has thrown out six of 23 attempted base stealers and his throws have been wildly inconsistent. This offseason, Salty was graded as a below average catcher by the Fans Scouting Report. In my personal opinion, he’d have to hit a ton to warrant sticking as a major league starting catcher.
Varitek, on the other hand isn’t exactly a defensive gem anymore. Some might argue that his leadership and game-calling abilities still make his a viable option, but I’d agree that people highly overestimate a catchers influence on a pitcher.
Regardless of whether V-Tek can influence pitchers in a positive way or not, one fact remains: he’s 39 years old. It’s been four years since V-Tek caught over 1000 innings and he only managed 275.1 innings behind the dish last season.
The situation at catcher may not be an easy problem to fix. While the front office is looking at what (if any) possibilities are out there, there don’t seem to be a ton of options right now.
Francona has had to make some tough decisions already this season. Decisions I’m sure he didn’t think he’d have to be making so early on. This team wasn’t supposed to start the season like this. Carl Crawford wasn’t supposed to be hitting .156. Clay Buchholz wasn’t supposed to be 1-3 with a 5.33 ERA and 1.85 WHIP. And on and on…
Jed Lowrie looks like a legitimate answer at shortstop (as well as filling in at third every once in a while). For a team that needs to change their fortune, at least that’s a start.