The Red Seat: Rafaela Coming

Welcome back to The Red Seat Podcast, episode number 293. This week, Keaton DeRocher and Bob Osgood talked about the intense past seven days against the Astros and Dodgers, the roster shake-up that led to the call-up of center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela, more depressing defense and baserunning, and react to the recent bullpen usage.

Starting with the Houston series, the Red Sox dropped the first two games before evening the series by taking advantage of their pitching matchups. Adam Duvall earned Player of the Week honors, thanks to home runs in each of the first three games of the series, part of a 14-for-29 week with 5 HRs and 12 RBI in total. Brayan Bello threw the lone quality start of the week, while the rest of the rotation put the bullpen in a bind that we are still seeing the lasting effects of. Rafael Devers’ shaky play at third base did not help in that sense either. With Kenley Jansen down for a few days, we take some time to appreciate Chris Martin’s season, who has allowed one run in his past 29 appearances and has a 1.33 ERA since last year’s trade deadline.

Over the weekend, the Dodgers came to town with a slew of ex-Red Sox entering the park, led by Mookie Betts. Betts did exactly what he’s done all year, and did for most of his time in Boston, and played at an MVP-caliber level all weekend, getting on pace half the time. Freddie Freeman did the same, getting on base 60% of the time. The Dodgers took two of three. We discussed the frustration on Sunday, in a 4-2 game, seeing Chris Murphy take one for the team, which became even more evident as the night went on as we observed the Kyle Barraclough box score.

We talked about what we will expect from Ceddanne Rafaela in this season, how he might have helped with a defense that is at the bottom of the league this season, and where we see his role next season. Finishing the show, we took mailbag questions on many topics, including Brayan Bello’s innings count, a potential six-man rotation, Ryan Brasier, Tanner Houck, and Garrett Whitlock.

If you have a question for an upcoming Red Seat pod, you can email us at redseatpodcast@gmail.com or tweet us. On Twitter, Jake is @DevJake, Keaton is @TheSpokenKeats and Bob is @BobOsgood15. Thanks for listening!