Adley Rutschman Breaks Silence on Struggles With Red Sox Amid .059 Batting Average originally appeared on NESN. Add NESN as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The Boston Red Sox traded for Adley Rutschman in hopes of the former Baltimore Orioles star being the best catcher in Major League Baseball. For parts of Rutschman's time in the league, he's been just as good as anyone.
At other points, there have been struggles.
While still early and coming back from an injury, the early returns for Rutschman and the Red Sox have been far from ideal. Rutschman, 28 years old, is slashing .059/.273/.059 with no extra-base hits and just one hit in 17 at-bats.
For a Red Sox team looking to secure a spot in the postseason, Rutschman needs to get going, and he understands that.
"Just trying to stay with my process, not make any drastic changes," Rutschman told The Boston Globe's Alex Speier.
“Bottom line. I want to perform for these guys and come out here and be able to do what I do, but at the end of the day . . . you really have to stick with [process] or else baseball is a game of failure and can get you in a bad mind-set quickly.”
Rutschman wasn't exactly elite with the Orioles in his 67 games with the club this campaign. He posted an above-league-average 115 OPS+, but that's far from anything special. Earlier in his career, he posted marks of 131 and 128.
Since then, however, he's been a slightly above-league-average offensive player, though clubs can usually deal with that from players behind the plate.
A three-time All-Star, there was some risk in the deal for Rutschman. He's going to be more than fine, but the Red Sox could really use the player he was back in 2022 and 2023, when he posted a bWAR of 5.4 in 2022 and 4.3 in 2023.
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