Amid his quest to regain his timing and production at the plate, Hanley Ramirez was moved down to the No. 7 spot in manager John Farrell’s batting order. It was the first time Ramirez has started a game in the No. 7 spot in the batting order since 2006. Chris Young was vaulted up to the No. 5 spot.
“Yeah, as we know, Hanley’s been working through some things to try to get timing on track,” said Farrell. “Bottom line, the players are going to kind of tell you where they hit in the order. Chris has done an outstanding job this year, particularly against left-handed pitchers. And while Hanley works through the timing issues, we felt we needed a little jump start or a spark potentially.”
Ramirez thought he had found something a week ago when he hit a mammoth home run against Baltimore’s Kevin Gausman.
“Yeah, even it wasn’t a home run, you saw hard contact,” Farrell said. “Really, that’s kind of what you’re looking for when timing is a little more consistent or on the mark. The fact that it went out of the ballpark in my mind is somewhat irrelevant. He squared up a breaking ball that stayed up in the middle of the strike zone. As we’ve talked about, the leg kick, the timing, the bat path, that’s all being worked on.”
After a monster first month with the Red Sox in 2015, Ramirez hasn’t hit for the type of production the Red Sox envisioned when they signed him to a four-year, $88-million contract. Since May 1, 2015, Ramirez has a line of .250/.303/.372 with 14 homer and 70 RBIs.
