At the outset of the season, everybody and their mother knew that Rafael Devers would have to have a monster season in order for Boston Red Sox to have any chance at a modicum of success in 2024.
After an injury-plagued, inconsistent start, the superstar third baseman is well on his way.
Devers put himself in rarified air with Monday’s performance in the series opener in Tampa Bay. His two-run blast in the fourth inning of Boston’s eventual 5-0 win marked his sixth straight game with a home run, establishing a new Red Sox franchise mark.
Rafael Devers is the only player in Red Sox history to homer in 6 consecutive games. pic.twitter.com/TOssP5sAKy
— Red Sox (@RedSox) May 20, 2024
“I don’t usually think about records in the game for me,” Devers said through a team interpreter. “It was most about hitting the ball well in the air with scoring position. I know I’ve been struggling in the past with men in scoring position, and for me to be able to help the team … it was a great moment.”
Devers crossed the plate again on Tuesday night, but it wasn't because of a home run. He scored on a Vaughn Grissom RBI single in the second inning and finished 1 for 3 with a walk in Boston's 5-2, series-clinching victory over Tampa.
During his six-game homer streak, Devers hit .292 with seven home runs and nine runs batted in. On face value, those numbers look pretty good, and it would be easy enough to anoint Devers as the Sox’s offensive savior based on them.
“The accomplishment is amazing,” Alex Cora told reporters. “Six days in a row hitting a homer, I can’t recall how many days in a row I got hits when I played, and he’s hitting homers. … He’s understanding who he is in the lineup.”
Devers certainly is hitting the ball well, as he says, but it comes with a caveat — he still isn’t performing up to the level of his potential.
It seems that Cora would agree…
“He keeps making adjustments, he’s grinding through it, and little by little he’s feeling comfortable. He’s not there yet, I don’t think he’s there yet,” Cora said. “Probably if you ask him, he’s not there yet. You know, we’ve been talking about it. You act surprised, but that’s how we feel. … He knows he needs to be more consistent, and that’s what we’re trying to accomplish.”
Breaking it down further, that .292 average consisted of just seven hits — six of which have come on homers. The other hit was a ninth-inning single in a 7-5 series-clinching Rays’ win last Thursday.
Within that stretch, only once did Devers record a multi-hit game — he hit a solo homer in the second inning for the first of his two hits in the aforementioned Rays game. And there’s another caveat — his big hits haven’t been coming with many runners on base, either. Three of his homers have been two-run shots, while the other three have been solo blasts.
Yet what’s most troubling is looking at the Sox’s record during Devers’ homer streak. Boston won just two of its six games during the stretch that began on May 15. The good news, though, is that the Red Sox have an overall record of 6-4 this season in games where Devers homers.
So, they’re winning more than they’re losing when Devers goes deep. That’s good, and that seems to be a recipe for success in the long haul, right?
While Devers’ hot stretch has been encouraging, it’s also been a reminder that he can’t do it all by himself. Much as we’d all love to see it, I can tell you that… no, Raffy is not going to homer in every game for the remainder of the season.
Nor is he going to drive in four runs per game, which has been the Red Sox’s real magic number for success this season. As the WEEI broadcast pointed out Sunday, Boston is 22-7 (after Tuesday's game) when they hang at least four runs on the scoreboard. When they don’t? Well… they’re just 3-17.
So in light of Devers finishing the campaign with 124 homers and 479 RBIs, he’s going to need a little help. And that’s where the problem becomes further amplified: there aren’t many other options on this team that can help right now.
Trevor Story is lost for the season. Triston Casas and Masataka Yoshida are still on the shelf. Tyler O’Neill has been in a funk. Grissom is still very much a work in progress offensively. Sure, you’ve been getting solid production from Connor Wong, Jarren Duran and Wilyer Abreu for most of the year now. But are they enough to generate that kind of offense, and can they do it all year long?
It seems unlikely, and it’s another glaring example of this team’s poorly constructed roster coming back to bite them…
Gethin Coolbaugh is a columnist for Boston Sports Journal. Follow him @GethinCoolbaugh on X/Twitter.