WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2019 The Boston Globe Sports C5
JIM DAVIS/GLOBE STAFF
Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski watches the game with the trade deadline just hours away.Sox in no position for deadline blockbuster
Though Cora suggested that
the Red Sox might consider
dealing pieces from their big
league roster for the right re-
turn, it seems likelier that the
Sox — mindful of the need to
rebuild their farm system —
seek a player who can upgrade
their bullpen while coming at a
modest prospect return.
One idea worth dismissing:
It seems almost impossible to
imagine the Sox moving An-
drew Benintendi in any deal.
He is amid an offensive surge –
.333/.398/.578 over 18 games
before Tuesday night — after
making swing adjustments. He
is young and inexpensive, a
huge asset to roster-building.
And the Red Sox face uncer-
tainty with the futures of J.D.
Martinez (able to opt out after
2019) and both Mookie Betts
and Jackie Bradley Jr. (both eli-
gible for free agency after
2020). They need Benintendi
for what awaits in the coming
months and year.
Such an approach to the
trade deadline isn’t necessarily
glamorous, but it can be ex-
tremely effective. Red Sox pres-
ident of baseball operations
Dave Dombrowski is consid-
ered a big-game hunter on the
trading market, a reputation
earned with massive deals,
such as the one that brought
David Price from Tampa Bay to
Detroit in 2014. But Dom-
browski has proven adept at
making subtler in-season
moves, particularly with the
Red Sox.
In 2016, the team reinforced
a leaky bullpen with Brad
Ziegler. In 2017, Eduardo
Nunez and Addison Reed both
played significant roles in help-
ing the Red Sox win the AL
East. In 2018, few viewed Steve
Pearce or Nathan Eovaldi as
game-changing additions, yet
both proved pivotal postseason
contributors.
“It wasn’t like big, huge,
huge moves,” Cora recalled of
last year’s trade deadline.
uONBASEBALL
Continued from Page C1
“When we got Nate, it was just
like, ‘Huh, OK, yeah.’ Then we
got Pearce. It was a good base-
ball move.”
The Sox were willing to
make deals, but preserved the
top prospects while becoming a
better team in each season.
Can the Red Sox bullpen — a
source of scrutiny all year due
to its 4.54 ERA and 18 blown
saves — be remade with “good
baseball moves” rather thanthe addition of a well-known
firebreathing dragon to provide
the team with the established
closer that has been absent this
year?
Perhaps. At the least, history
is somewhat instructive when
it comes to the October signifi-
cance of established closers.
Chris Sale recorded the last out
of the 2018 season while Craig
Kimbrel struggled in the post-
season. In 2017, Charlie Mor-ton finished Game 7 of the
World Series with Ken Giles all
but put on mothballs in Octo-
ber. In 2016, Mike Montgom-
ery recorded the most impor-
tant save in Cubs history after
midyear pickup Aroldis Chap-
man blew a Game 7 save.
In 2014, Madison Bumgar-
ner was the end-of-Game 7
force for the Giants. In 2013,
unestablished closer Koji Ue-
hara (way down on the RedSox’ closing depth charts into
June) was the late-innings
force.
October bullpens more of-
ten than not are shapeshifting.
The most important thing for a
team is to have an inventory of
high-caliber arms from which
to pick, choose, and adapt.
In all likelihood, such a
mandate will have the Red Sox
looking to deepen their own in-
ventory of late-innings arms byWednesday afternoon — yet
without the need to alter the
entire structure. Since the Red
Sox have started seeing their
starters working deeper into
games, Cora has found that he’s
more frequently had options
available for specific situations.
“Since we started going six
innings, we’ve been pretty
good. And that’s the key. People
can talk about the guys in the
bullpen and who we have and
all that, but I think it starts in
the first six innings of the
game,” said Cora. “Structure-
wise, everybody has seen
what’s going on. [Brandon
Workman] is kind of like our
guy in the ninth inning, he’s
been solid. [Matt Barnes],
we’ve been using him earlier
than earlier in the season, and
[Eovaldi is] still working.”
Cora also mentioned the ef-
fectiveness of Josh Taylor and
Darwinzon Hernandez, and the
improvement of Marcus
Walden with more narrowly
defined situational usage. In
short, the Sox don’t feel as if
they’re far from having a bull-
pen that will be sturdier than it
has been to this point — but
with a last chance to reinforce
the group.
More likely than not, that is
a recipe for Dombrowski to act
by 4 o’clock.
“He knows what he wants,
goes after it, and he gets it,”
said Red Sox starter Rick Por-
cello, who has spent his entire,
11-season big league career
(save for the early months of
the 2015 season) on Dom-
browski-constructed teams in
Detroit and Boston. “Whatever
hole he thinks needs to be filled
on a team or weakness he
thinks we may have, he does
whatever he can to the best of
his ability to fill that hole and
get a guy in here who can con-
tribute and make us a better
team. That’s what I’ve seen year
in, year out.”Alex Speier can be reached at
[email protected]. Follow
him on Twitter at @alexspeier.Forstraightandcurvedstairs
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