'Confidence is high' for Casas amidst slump; Red Sox need consistency despite two key hits on current homestand

Red Sox first baseman Triston Casas has had a terrible start at the plate to begin the year, but with one swing on Tuesday night, he may finally be showing signs of getting out of his stark slump.

With the Mariners in town to begin a three-game set with the Red Sox, Casas hit a huge three-run home run late in the game to give Boston a 7-3 lead at the time. The Sox went on to defeat the Mariners, 8-4, and they’ve won six of their last seven games and seven of their last nine dating back to April 13.

Casas’ home run came in the seventh inning with Wilyer Abreu and Kristian Campbell on base; he demolished an 80.1 mph curveball left over the heart of the plate by Mariners righty Trent Thornton. With one swing, as he stared down his blast, the left-handed hitter took some pressure off his shoulders amidst his dreadful start to the season.

“It felt good to give us a little more cushion,” said Casas about his home run following the game. “It definitely felt good to extend that lead a little bit.... It felt good to finally connect with one, contribute, and put on the Wally Head.”

Ironically, Casas’ home run came against the Mariners, the same team Boston was trying to trade him to back in December, along with outfielder/designated hitter Masataka Yoshida for starting pitcher Luis Castillo.

In the last four days, Casas has delivered two key hits: the walk-off on Saturday against the White Sox and his homer on Tuesday, which could serve as a confidence boost and finally get him going offensively.

“The confidence is high,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been getting my swings off. I really didn’t change much on that (home run) swing. It felt good to hit it on the middle of the barrel for once. But I’ve been swinging hard, swinging at strikes.”

The slugger has been the epitome of an automatic out, hitting just .165 batting average, 13-for-79. He owns a slash line of .241/.278/.519 OPS with two homers, three doubles, seven RBI, and four runs in 22 games.

Due to his offensive slump, the 25-year-old, who started the year in the cleanup spot, has fallen to seventh in the batting order.

Casas ranks in the 39th percentile in K percentage, 53rd percentile in barrel percentage, and 21st percentile in whiff percentage, per Baseball Savant. He has a -7 batting run value in 87 plate appearances with a 39 wRC+. In addition, he has mostly hit the ball in the air; 44.8% of his balls in play have been in the air, and 36.2% have been on the ground. He’s been trying to hit the ball to the opposite field; 25.9% have gone that way, according to FanGraphs.

“Obviously, there’s a process in place. A lot of people are working with him, grinding with him,” said Alex Cora. “Hopefully, this is the beginning of something good. We’ve just got to stay patient and help him out throughout the process. Sometimes, us as coaches, we let the players do their thing and (say) ‘He’ll figure it out, he’ll figure it out.’

“But we’ve got to push. We need him. We need him. We need him to hit the ball hard.”

Casas has the ability to recap his at-bats in tremendous detail, citing exit velocity off his bat, launch angle, and other key advanced stats. His attention to detail is impeccable but also can seem off-putting to others as he narrates his at-bats.

“So it’s like, how do I quantify success here at this park? It’s just the right day and the right timing,” he said, as if wrestling with an algebraic equation. “I’ve hit balls better than I feel like I hit that ball today, and those died at the track, too. I’ve got to pick the right day to hit the right balls. If I do, I’ll be lucky enough to get results.

“That’s just the roll of the dice and the luck of the draw, I guess, in terms of results and outcome and my process and what I’m looking for at the plate.”

OPPOSITE FIELD APPROACH

Casas talked about utilizing the Green Monster to his advantage in the spring, citing that his swing is made for Fenway Park.

“My swing plays well in our home field,” said Casas this spring. “If I’m able to control the inner part of the plate and drive it to left-center, I think that’s the Mount Rushmore of a great hitter, being able to take an inside pitch and drive it to the opposite field. I think that’s the next step in my game.

Only four of his 12 hits have gone to left field; he’s hit two singles, one double, and one home run. That home run came on the road while the team was in Baltimore. 

Following the opening series with Texas, Cora pulled Casas aside in Baltimore and spoke to him in Spanish, telling him he needed to be aggressive at the plate. His pep talk worked for that one game, hitting a 377-foot two-run homer to left-center field off left-handed reliever Keegan Akin.

“Being aggressive and being passive is a two-way street,” Casas said in Baltimore about his approach offensively at the beginning of the season. “It’s a push and a pull. You’re too much of one, and they’ll take advantage of it. And too much of the other— it’s not productive. So it’s gonna be something I balance throughout the year. Coming into the season, I wasn’t sure which direction I was gonna start. Got a lot of fastballs in Texas, as well as here. So I’ve been getting attacked. And I think that’s just his message to me, as if they’re gonna attack me in the zone to go right back at it and swing hard.”

DEFENSIVELY FALLING SHORT

On the defensive side of the ball, he's been lackluster. Entering play on Tuesday night, Casas had a negative-2 defensive runs saved in 174 innings at first base, according to FanGraphs. In terms of overall WAR, he ranks 76th out of 76 first basemen.

Cora told reporters on Tuesday that Casas has been “inconsistent” in fielding his position.

"Yeah, inconsistent,” said Cora from Fenway Park. “There’s a few things that we’re working on with him, and we believe he can be much better.”

Casas has made 20 starts (21 games) at first base and has committed two errors.

On Saturday afternoon, while fielding a bouncer to first base against the White Sox, he could have potentially committed his third error. Casas tagged the bag, and when he turned to throw, he threw to the outside part of the bag, forcing Trevor Story to make the catch and tag the runner at the same time. The ball popped out of Story’s glove, and the official scorer charged the shortstop with the errors.

Cora was asked what Casas has been working on to become more consistent at first base moving forward.

“The first step,” Cora said. “We were trying to work on his pre-pitch in spring training. He’s fallen into some bad habits lately. But if we can get that one down, he’ll be better. He’s making throws. He makes every throw at first base. That’s really good. But yeah, we gotta get him moving at first.”

The Red Sox have been the worst defensive team in Major League Baseball, committing 25 errors in 25 games. Shockingly, Alex Bregman, who is coming off winning a Gold Glove last season at third base, leads the Sox with five errors.

With just a week left in the month of April, Casas needs to get going as an all-around player, or the Red Sox will need to seriously consider alternative options at first base. Complicating the matter, Boston lacks depth at first base, utilizing Romy Gonzalez as Casas’ backup, with Nick Sogard, Abraham Toro, and Vaughn Grissom all getting reps at the position for the WooSox.

Grissom is making a compelling case for a big league promotion; he’s been tearing the cover off the ball for Worcester. He’s hitting .325 with three homers, eight doubles, 10 RBI, five walks, and one stolen base, while posting a .926 OPS. The 24-year-old has played three games at first base in Worcester and hasn’t committed an error in 21 1/3 innings played there thus far.

HIGH EXPECTATIONS 

Craig Breslow said in the offseason that Casas has the potential to hit 40 homers and knock in 120 runs. Only nine players in Red Sox history have gone 40/120 in a season, including the likes of J.D. Martinez, David Ortiz, Mo Vaughn, and Manny Ramirez.

“I think that is the expectation for the first baseman of the Boston Red Sox. I think if I’m not able to do that, then I don’t deserve a job here,” Casas said about Breslow’s comments to The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier while in camp. “I don’t feel that’s out of my reach. I feel like that’s something that’s very possible for me to accomplish.

“I appreciate (Craig Breslow’s) vote of confidence in myself, but that is the caliber of hitter that I need to be to stay in this position that I am. I’ve put in plenty of work to be able to go out there and accomplish it, but it’s just a matter of staying healthy and being out there on the field for, say, 150-plus games. I think that it’s very reasonable.”

Breslow and the Sox have high expectations for Casas, and it might be time to pump the brakes a little on the 40/120 conversation. Projected stats only provide a partial picture; Casas' current stats and approach reveal the true picture. Can Casas’ thunderous bat produce like an elite slugger? Who knows? I’m sure he will let everyone know either way as he breaks down his approach, at-bat by at-bat. Consistency is the name of the game for Casas, and if this home run on Tuesday night catapults him out of this miserable start, Boston’s lineup only gets deeper. If not, Boston needs to find a replacement.

“I think this is the worst statistical month of my career so far,” acknowledged Casas. “But that’s OK. There’s still a lot of games left, and I’m going to stay positive every day and try to figure this out sooner rather than later.”