Kevin Plawecki will be behind the plate for the Red Sox on Wednesday as Nathan Eovaldi looks to recover from one of his worst outings of the season.
On paper, it seems like the pairing should work out for Boston — Eovaldi has a 3.26 ERA through 94 innings with Plawecki as his catcher, compared to a 4.87 ERA in 44 1/3 innings when Christian Vázquez is behind the plate for him.
But Red Sox manager Alex Cora said before Wednesday’s game that it’s not about the numbers. At least, not those numbers.
Rather, Plawecki cracked the lineup in this crucial spot due to his bat. The Red Sox are up against Baltimore Orioles lefty Zac Lowther on Wednesday, and Plawecki fares better in the box than Vázquez does against lefthanded pitchers.
“It’s actually not about that,” Cora said before Wednesday’s game against the Baltimore Orioles. “It’s actually about getting Kevin’s bat against lefties. For some reason this year, Christian has struggled against lefties. If you compare his numbers from (2019), even last year, if you want to count those, it’s very different.
“Kevin has been solid against lefties. He’s been solid with everybody behind the plate. He calls a good game. He blocks the ball. Obviously they’ve been running on him but they’ve been running on us regardless. That doesn’t make a difference.”
Vázquez is hitting only .216 against lefties this season, while Plawecki is much more productive with a .313 average against southpaws.
At the end of the day, Cora maintained that Eovaldi would be capable of throwing a good game to just about anyone — even former Red Sox All-Star catcher Jason Varitek, who is now with the team as the game planning coordinator.
We’re not sure if that says more about Eovaldi or Varitek.
