Alex Cora Believes This Contributes To Rafael Devers’ Hitting Struggles

It hasn’t been the easiest season for the Red Sox, including arguably their best player.

Rafael Devers’ numbers certainly don’t warrant concern. Boston’s third baseman entered Thursday with a .267 average with 29 home runs and 89 RBIs. But Devers recently hasn’t looked like his best self at the plate, most notably a lack of hard-hit baseballs the opposite way.

If you ask Alex Cora, Devers’ mechanics have been “kind of off the whole season,” but the struggles at the dish might go beyond tactical issues. Cora believes the two-time All-Star also can run into problems when “he knows what’s coming and he wants to hit it harder instead of backtracking and hitting it off the wall,” per The Boston Globe.

Perhaps this overaggressiveness is due in part to the new role Devers took on this season. With Xander Bogaerts and J.D. Martinez out of the equation, the 26-year-old unequivocally became “the guy” in Boston’s batting order. And with offense at a premium for a Red Sox team that’s dealt with pitching struggles all season, Devers might be putting too much pressure on himself to deliver with the bat.

It’s a good sign for Boston that Cora is talking about Devers’ hitting woes in a season where the seventh-year pro is probably going to exceed the 30-homer and 100-RBI thresholds. It just goes to show when Devers is really rolling, he can be one of the best hitters in baseball.