Cora, Sawamura have plan to reduce homers

While Hirokazu Sawamura continues to make progress in his first season in the Major Leagues, one issue for the Japanese reliever has been the long ball.

In Friday’s 6-2 win over the Orioles, Sawamura gave up his fourth home run in 13 appearances. Among Red Sox pitchers, only Eduardo Rodriguez, who is a starting pitcher with more than twice as many innings as Sawamura, has given up more.

The good news is that Red Sox manager Alex Cora thinks there is a solution within reach.

“Fastball is down in the zone. That's something that we have talked about,” said Cora.

Back in the day, pitchers would try to keep the ball down in hopes of getting a ground ball instead of a more damaging hit. Those days seem to be over.

“Actually, we want him to elevate,” said Cora. “[Friday], his velocity was up, it was 97-98 [mph]. But at this level, it seems like fastball down in the zone, that's where they're hunting and they put good swings on it. Besides that he's been OK.”

To get to the point where Cora uses him in higher leverage situations, Sawamura might just need to make subtle adjustments.

“Obviously, the walks against lefties, it concerns you,” said Cora “Walks from the bullpen, it always concerns you. But I think it's just a slight adjustment, you know, being able to elevate the fastball. I’m not saying, just throw it up there all the time, you’ve got to get ahead, but you can expand up.

“And then when he can go up, they get to the limit and then he can use that split, which I think has been playing better lately. So I think that's the next step, just to make sure where to use his weapons, and I think that fastball should play up in the zone.”

Chavis leads off in first game back

A day after Michael Chavis was recalled from Triple-A Worcester to replace Kiké Hernández (10-day injured list with right hamstring strain) on the roster, he was inserted into the lineup in the leadoff spot for Saturday night’s game. Chavis was available on Friday, but didn’t play.

“As soon as I found out I was in the lineup today, I had a big old smile on my face. I called my family,” Chavis said.

Had his career progressed the way he had planned to this point, Chavis would not have started the season at the alternate site and Triple-A. Now that he has a second chance, Chavis is going to do his best not to press.

“I was talking yesterday and I asked our hitting coach, ‘Do you think I should approach this 10-day stint as an opportunity to prove myself and maybe earn a spot?’” Chavis said. “And after really thinking about it with him and talking it through with him, I don’t think that’s the appropriate approach for my own mindset, just because I think it’s going to cause me to kind of press or chase a result. I always talk about how staying process-oriented is not only just great for me, but in general for spots.

“It’s so easy to say I’m going to try and hit .500 and hit a bunch of home runs and not swing at bad pitches and everything like that, but the process is, I’m not going to swing at bad pitches, I’m going to have plate discipline and I’m going to focus on the process.”

Why not Verdugo at leadoff?

While Twitter has been full of Red Sox fans who want Alex Verdugo to lead off, Cora has steadfastly declined that idea and kept his invaluable outfielder in the No. 2 hole.

The reason is that he wants to keep his two through five combo of Verdugo, J.D. Martinez, Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers in that order.

“You saw what happened the series against Detroit,” said Cora. “J.D. got walked twice, and they went to probably one of the best hitters in the big leagues [in Bogaerts], so it's not about protection, it's about construction and how to manage the team against us and it seems like it's pretty difficult for the opposition to manage their bullpen with this structure that we have.”