BOSTON — The Red Sox made a rather significant change to their lineup ahead of Wednesday’s matchup with the Chicago White Sox, dropping struggling first baseman Hanley Ramirez to seventh in the batting order and elevating left fielder Chris Young to the No. 5 spot.
“As we know, Hanley’s been working through some things to try to get his timing on track,” Red Sox manager John Farrell said in his pregame news conference. “Bottom line is 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 bit of a jump-start or a spark, potentially.
Outside of one appearance in the No. 6 slot earlier this month, Ramirez has hit either fifth or cleanup in every game he’s started this season. He has not performed the way a batter in those spots should, however, collecting just 18 extra-base hits in 257 at-bats and carrying into Wednesday a lackluster .265/.333/.377 slash line.
“(Those struggles) will make you mad, no doubt,” Ramirez said after going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in Tuesday’s 3-1 loss to the White Sox at Fenway Park. “Can’t happen. Can’t happen. You cannot miss your pitch when it’s right in the middle of the plate.”
Ramirez has not started a game lower than sixth in the batting order since his rookie season in 2006, according to Alex Speier of The Boston Globe.
Boston dropped the first two games of its four-game set with Chicago, scoring just one run in each.
Here are the starting lineups for Wednesday’s tilt:
RED SOX (39-31)
Mookie Betts, RF
Dustin Pedroia, 2B
Xander Bogaerts, SS
David Ortiz, DH
Chris Young, LF
Jackie Bradley Jr., CF
Hanley Ramirez, 1B
Travis Shaw, 3B
Sandy Leon, C
Eduardo Rodriguez, LHPÂ (1-2, 6.97 ERA)
WHITE SOX (35-36)
Tim Anderson, SS
Adam Eaton, CF
Jose Abreu, 1B
Melky Cabrera, LF
Todd Frazier, 3B
Brett Lawrie, 2B
Dioner Navarro, C
Avisail Garcia, DH
Jason Coats, RF
Jose Quintana, LHPÂ (5-7, 2.63 ERA)
Thumbnail photo via Bob DeChiara/USA TODAY Sports Images
