On Lourdes Gurriel

Lourdes Gurriel impressed us again last night. He was only 1 for 4, but that 1 hit was an infield single that he beat out when Red Sox second baseman Eduardo Nunez was fairly relaxed on a ground ball up the middle. Gurriel was very quick up the first base line.

Then Lourdes stole second and would score from second on a shallow single to left. He looks faster than I thought he would be. In the minors he only stole 4 bases, 3 last year and 1 this spring. I really didn’t expect him to be this athletic.

In four games, Lourdes is hitting .267/.267/.267 (it seems like he is hitting better), with 1 steal, no walks and 2 strikeouts. He did come up just a couple of feet short of a home run in New York. To me, his defense has looked good. I’d like to see him play more shortstop, in part because I’m not a big fan of Aledmys Diaz. Diaz does have 4 home runs, but other than that, he hasn’t done much, hitting .191/.236/.397. I’d like to know if Gurriel can play short well enough that I’d like to see him out there everyday.

And there is this:

Yeah, I don’t know, my kid had hair like that a few years back, I’m not a fan.

I don’t know what the plan is for Gurriel when Josh Donaldson comes back. I generally don’t think about those things until they happen because so much can happen. Injuries, guys being slower to return from injury than expected or a hot streak turning cold. If Gurriel’s OPS is still .533 when Josh is ready to come back, he’ll likely be heading back down. But I am expecting his numbers to improve.

It is possible that they send Devon Travis down to find his stroke. I kind of doubt it, Travis has a history of being a slow starter, but maybe there is something more to it than a slow start. I think it is just timing but maybe his knee isn’t 100%.

I don’t think Teoscar Hernandez is going to be going anywhere. He is just hitting too well (.310/.370/.643 with 3 homers in 10 games). His defense might be causing me more gray hair, but I’ll live with it if he can keep hitting.

Would they release Kendrys Morales? It would be an interesting move to release a veteran Cuban player (who seems to be a mentor for Gurriel) to make room for a rookie Cuban player. I can’t see it happening.

Can they do something with Randal Grichuk? Well, Grichuk is out of options and he’s not going to be traded at this time of year. He can’t possibly continue hitting this badly, can he?