Red Sox Notes: Offense Starts, Ends With Alex Verdugo’s Three Doubles

After Monday’s trade deadline came and went, Alex Verdugo showed why he wasn’t dealt to another team in the Boston Red Sox’s opening game against the Atlanta Braves.

Verdugo led Boston’s offense with three doubles in four plate appearances with two runs. And his aggressiveness running the bases helped him score on a balk to take a brief lead.

It wasn’t enough, though, as he and Rafael Devers were the only players to record more than a single hit in the Red Sox’s 6-3 loss to the Braves. But Boston is liking what it’s seeing from Verdugo.

“Really nice off a really good pitcher,” manager Ron Roenicke said of Verdugo in his postgame Zoom conference. “(Verdugo) hangs in there well and he stays inside the ball, gives himself a chance, especially against the lefties, to hit them well. It’s fun to see when you’re battling a good pitcher and you put together three at bats like that.”

Verdugo seems to be getting better every game, now recording hits in 22 of his last 24 with 12 doubles on the season, and most importantly, he brings energy to the lineup even when the rest of it seems lifeless.

So it looks like Verdugo has earned the leadoff hitting spot for the time being.

“I think for now, probably, let (Verdugo) do it,” Roenicke said of the batting order, mentioning he would like to spread the outfielder and Devers out a bit so pitchers aren’t throwing to lefties consecutively.

“I think we’ll keep leading him off and I know sometimes guys like other positions better in the lineup, but he’s doing such a good job I would like to keep him there.”

Here are some other notes from Monday’s Red Sox-Braves game:

— Jackie Bradley Jr. and Christian Vazquez are two of the few members of the team left over from the 2018 World Series squad, but their names were involved in trade rumors leading up to Monday’s deadline.

But the pair remained in a Red Sox Uniform. And by all accounts, the players are happy about that.

“There were conversations with Jackie, not big conversations but just quick things, and he was smiling and so yeah, I think he feels pretty good,” Roenicke said. “Christian was pretty locked in with the game. … I can’t tell with him … but I think all the guys are relieved.”

Roenicke couldn’t tell how Vazquez was feeling about not getting traded, but the catcher expressed it after the game in his own postgame press conference.

“Yeah, I’m happy to be here and stay here,” he said. “Yeah, it was a lot of rumors but finally we made it here and we’re still here with these beautiful jerseys and I want to stay here for a long time.”

Bradley and Vazquez each had a hit and walked for the Red Sox, with the catcher also recording a run.

— The bullpen mostly was solid for Boston, with Robert Stock and Jeffrey Springs holding Atlanta scoreless in the final three innings giving up just one hit and striking out five.

Robinson Leyer, though shaky, gave up a run off two hits and a walk in his big league debut.

Colten Brewer, however, added to Boston’s starting pitching woes in his four-plus innings. He struck out four, but gave up five runs off eight hits and two walks.

Roenicke thinks it looked worse on paper, though.

“We tried to give him a chance to get a win and get him actually into the fifth inning, he’s been going three or four. We thought since his pitch count was down we’d try to do it but it didn’t work so well,” Roenicke said of Brewer’s outing.

“If that ball that (Marcell) Ozuna hit is a foot shorter, I mean it was a fly ball. If it’s a foot shorter that inning probably changes a lot. I know the numbers were bad, but I don’t think he threw the ball all that bad.”

Still, as noted by The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier, the Sox’s 6.91 ERA from its starting pitchers is worse than the 1996 Detroit Tigers, who own the worst ERA of a rotation in Major League Baseball history.

— The Red Sox continue their three-game series against the Braves on Tuesday evening at Fenway Park. First pitch is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.

Righty Ryan Weber gets the start for the first time in almost a month after contributing to Boston’s bullpen for 14 innings. For the Braves, Ian Anderson, another right hander, gets his second career start.