How Alex Cora Is Helping Red Sox Reliever Take Next Step In 2022

The Boston Red Sox took a shot on Japanese reliever Hirokazu Sawamura last winter in free agency and it largely paid off.

Last season the right-hander posted a 3.06 ERA with 61 strikeouts in 53 innings. While those numbers are great, Sawamura had one area that prevented him from being as consistent as the team needed him to be.

Sawamura walked 32 batters in 2021, averaging 5.4 walks per nine innings. Red Sox manager Alex Cora has proposed a plan to help cut those walks numbers down.

“One of the things we want is to throw the (split-finger fastball) for strikes instead of just use it as a chase pitch,” Alex Cora told reporters, as transcribed by MassLive’s Christopher Smith.

Last season, Sawamura often threw his splitter as a “chase pitch” below the zone. While the pitch did have a whiff rate of 46.7%, batters who did their research knew to lay off.

If Sawamura can bring that splitter up into the strike zone, especially behind in the count, he could become an even more important piece of the bullpen than he was last season.