Devers Goes Back To Basics

BOSTON—When the Red Sox made it through the trade deadline with their core of top position prospects intact, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski specifically mentioned how part of the team’s calculus had been a desire to retain both Andrew Benintendi and Yoan Moncada.

With little notice, Dombrowski also mentioned a third prospect with those other two: 19-year-old third baseman Rafael Devers.

Two months earlier, Devers’ status in the big three was an open question. Through the end of May, he had hit just .195/.273/.310 through 47 games at high Class A Salem. That performance was accompanied by raised eyebrows from scouts, who saw a player trying to force power rather than trusting his hands to employ his natural all-fields strength.

“The first month, he had a slow start,” Salem hitting coach Nelson Paulino said. “He tried to do too much, (with) too much effort with his body. His pitch recognition did not work. He was swinging mostly at pitchers’ pitches.

“When (the trio was) together, (Devers) saw Moncada’s and Benintendi’s good approach and tried to be the same way. He knows he’s got power. He had to be able to understand that he needed to pick good pitches to hit the ball . . . He was off-balance at the plate, trying to hit the ball too hard.”

Of course, given Devers’ youth—he’s roughly 18 months younger than Moncada and more than two years younger than Benintendi—he wasn’t supposed to rocket through the Carolina League. Behind the scenes, the young lefthanded batter and Paulino went to work in the cages, working on letting the ball get deeper to improve pitch selection and emphasize Devers’ unusual ability to drive the ball to left and left-center field.

Paulino believes that Devers emerged with the best approach he’s shown as a professional. Through a two-homer game on Aug. 11, Devers hit .336/.382/.556 with 33 extra-base hits and 17.7 percent strikeouts in 59 games.

SOX YARNS

• Benintendi, called up on Aug. 2, became the first Red Sox first-round position player ever to reach the majors one year after being drafted.

• Double-A Portland righthander Teddy Stankiewicz fired a nine-inning, one-hit shutout with seven strikeouts on Aug. 2.