Rafaela drives in 5 runs with first multi-homer game

BOSTON -- In recent days, at the suggestion of members of the coaching staff, Ceddanne Rafaela lowered his hands in his setup, hoping to emerge from a batting slump that has hovered over him for most of the last two months.

If Friday night was any indication, the tweaks are starting to pay off.

From the No. 9 spot in the batting order, the wiry rookie from Curaçao bashed two homers over the Green Monster to lead the Red Sox to a 7-3 victory over the Tigers.

And the night wouldn’t have been complete without Rafaela making yet another impressive play on defense, as he dove to snare a sinking liner by Zach McKinstry for the second out in the top of the ninth.

While the defense has always been Rafaela’s natural gift, he had spent a substantial amount of time working on his new hand positioning in the batting cage before the tweaks were game ready.

“Yeah, I think working in the cage is where it started and then when I was 100 percent [confident] about it, I did it in the game,” Rafaela said. “I think at this level, you have to make adjustments.”

And there was traffic -- as Red Sox manager Alex Cora likes to call it -- on the bases when Rafaela went deep, giving the 23-year-old a five-RBI night to add to his team-leading 33 on the season.

“He has the most at-bats with runners on [base] on our team,” said Cora. “He's getting a lot of opportunities. But you still got to drive them in. He's done a good job [lately]. It seems like he's more locked in. It's not out of control.”

Rafaela could have gone back to Triple-A Worcester for more seasoning at the end of Spring Training or even at some point over these last few weeks.

But the Sox were willing to let his elite glove in center field and at shortstop eat with the expectation his offense would eventually catch up.

While a batting adjustment such as lowering the hands to create a quicker path to the baseball sounds simple enough in theory, it isn’t.

“We’ve been talking about it for a while, but it’s not that easy to go from one spot to the other,” Cora said. “He understands and knows what we want him to do and that he needs to do it. But it’s a comfort thing and little by little, he’s getting there.”

The Red Sox have had a lot of practice the last couple of years in helping younger players adjust to the highest level of pitching, be it Jarren Duran, Triston Casas, Connor Wong and now Rafaela.

“Jarren with his hands, Casas with his elbow, and this year it’s Rafaela with his hands,” Cora said. “And he knows. He studies the game and he sees all the guys and where they’re at and how they perform. So hopefully we get him to the spot that we're looking for and it should be fun.”

For Rafaela, the fun on Friday was seeing some payoff from his work behind the scenes.

“Obviously, when you do your adjustment and you see it work out, it builds confidence,” Rafaela said.

Though his quest to become a more consistent hitter isn’t complete, Rafaela (.211/.239/.387 batting line with seven homers) rewarded the organization’s faith in him with the first multi-homer game of his career on Friday.

And it came at an opportune time, as Boston has been struggling to score runs at a time three important hitters (Casas, Masataka Yoshida and Tyler O’Neill) are all on the injured list and another (Trevor Story) was long ago lost for the season.

Backed by a seven-run barrage between innings four through six, emerging ace Tanner Houck (1.85 ERA) turned in another tremendous performance. Over seven innings and 95 pitches, Houck allowed three hits and one run, walking two and striking out six.

Houck, having gone through some lumps in recent years before breaking through this season, can certainly relate to what Rafaela is going through this season.

“This is a hard game. And it's even harder at a younger age. I mean, he's 23 years old and in the big leagues,” Houck said. “For him to have a game like tonight, it’s great. I'm sure it's a huge confidence boost for him. He’s a good player and I'm excited to see where he can be one day.”