To the list of things that have not gone according to plan for the 2019 Red Sox -- joining the performance of the starting rotation and the failure of the bullpen -- it may be time to add the team's catching situation.
Just prior to the start of the season, the Red Sox identified Christian Vazquez and Blake Swihart at their catching tandem for the season, while designating Sandy Leon for assignment (and, eventually, optioning him to Pawtucket).
That alignment lasted about three weeks before Leon was summoned from Pawtucket and Swihart dealt to Arizona.
Since then, the team's pitching has improved over the horrid stretch it experience over the first three weeks, representing a positive development.
Also, Vazquez has enjoyed a breakout offensively, hitting more homers in the first half of this season than he previously had hit in his career. Vazquez's numbers with two games remaining in the first half (.298/.333/.510) are deserving of All-Star Game inclusion.
But while Vazquez has shown great progress at the plate, his play behind the plate seems to have regressed. Vazquez's arm strength remains elite -- he's thrown out 37 percent would-be base-stealers, far above the league average of 28 percent -- but he has not done a good job in blocking balls and receiving.
In about the three-quarters of the innings caught compared to last year (484 this year; 604 in 2018), Vazquez has already allowed 32 wild pitches, compared to just 21 all of last season.
Part of that, of course, is a game-wide trend: with so many pitchers throwing breaking balls below the strike zone, wild pitches are up across the game.
In terms of defensive runs saved above average, as determined by Baseball Info Solutions, Vazquez is at three; meanwhile, in approximately the same number of innings in 2014, he had 14. And in 2017, with a full season workload, he was credited with 12.
But it's not just the wild pitches that are up considerably. It's also his inability to hold onto pitches and general sloppiness behind the plate.
And it's worth noting that his catcher's ERA, at 4.83, nearly exactly a full run increase (3.84) over last year. Again, much of that increase has to be the responsibility of the pitching staff, which too often has failed to execute pitches.
Still, it's worth noting that Leon's catcher's ERA is 4.24, more than half a run lower. And unlike past seasons when Leon has had the benefit of being Chris Sale's personal catcher, an edge bound to be reflected in his catcher's ERA, Sale has been so inconsistent this season that that statistical advantage has been negated.
Toward that end, is it merely coincidence that some of Sale's poorest starts -- in the first weeks of the season, when Leon wasn't on the roster; and more recently, in Toronto, with Vazquez purposely given the starting assignment -- have come with Vazquez as his battery-mate?
That, too, may be flawed data since early in the season, Sale had clearly not built up sufficient arm strength.
But a scout who watched Vazquez paired with Sale earlier this week in Toronto noted that the pitcher's tempo was noticeably slowed by Vazquez, while also questioning the decision to go almost exclusively with fastballs in the early going -- much to Sale's detriment.
Is it possible that Sanchez has turned into the Red Sox' version of the Yankees' Gary Sanchez -- that is, an offense-first catcher capable of shutting down opponents' running games, but generally regarded as a defensive liability?
Another: has Vazquez's offensive growth come at the expense of his play behind the plate? Has time spent on his swing and hitting approach caused him to move backward as a receiver?
At times recently, Alex Cora has tried to have it both ways, with Leon catching and Vazquez utilized as the DH. But that combination can only be used sporadically because J.D. Martinez is the DH in about 80 percent of the team's games, and because the arrangement can frequently leave the Sox without a DH at all when Leon is lifted for a pinch-hitter late in games and Vazquez must take over behind the plate.
All together, it's one more problem the Red Sox didn't expect to be dealing with as the first half of a disappointing season concludes.
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- Last winter, utility man Luis Valbuena, who had played for the Angels in 2017 and 2018, died in a car crash in his native Dominican Republic.
- Only 10 years ago, another young pitcher, Nick Adenhart, was killed by a drunk driver not long after pitching a game at Angel Stadium. At 22, he was even younger than Skaggs.
- In 1989, weeks after his playing career ended, former Angels reliever Donnie Moore killed himself with a gun. Moore apparently was never able to get over giving up the game-winning homer to Dave Henderson in Game 5 of the 1986 ALCS that keyed the Red Sox' comeback in that series. He blamed himself for the Angels failing to reach the World Series for what would have been the first time.
- In 1978, Angels outfielder Lyman Bostock was shot while driving in a car with some relatives and friends in Gary Indiana. Bostock was just 27.
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