BOSTON -- It was just over a month ago that Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom took heat for not bringing on a first baseman at the Trade Deadline.

Bobby Dalbec's hot August certainly quieted that talk, for now.

The 26-year-old slugger was named the American League August Rookie of the Month after putting up impressive numbers. He was first in OPS (1.205) and OBP (.431), and second in slugging percentage (.774) and average (.339).

Dalbec entered Friday’s series opener against the Indians batting .455 during a seven-game hitting streak that included four homers.

“First of all, the willingness of the player to make adjustments is very important,” manager Alex Cora said. “It’s not easy, like everybody thought. He struggles early and then he’ll figure it out. Here, it’s a little tougher to figure out.”

Dalbec was hitting just .185 on June 8. Over his last 18 games he’s collected 21 RBIs, including a career-high seven RBIs and two homers during a 12-2 rout of Minnesota on Aug. 26.

Cora feels like Dalbec's learning a lot from some of the other hitters in Boston.

“One thing he’s doing is making better swing decisions, because he’s on time and that’s great,” Cora explained. “Its’s not a coincidence; we have some guys that are preaching that and talking about that. When you’re on time you kind of dictate when you want to swing. He’s been doing that for a long period of time and we’re proud of that. He’s putting quality at-bats after quality at-bats and his strikeout rate is going down, the walks are going up. He’s hitting the ball to the pull side. He’s in a great position right now.”

Lineup shuffle -- Duran out
Rookie outfielder Jarren Duran was scratched from the starting lineup and placed on the COVID-19-related IL before the Red Sox opened a three-game series against the Indians on Friday night.

“He’s not feeling well,” Cora said. “He’s going through with his [COVID-19] testing. We’ll know more hopefully later today. He doesn’t feel great, so we’ll go through the process.”

Losing Duran caused Cora to shuffle his lineup a couple of hours before the opener and forced Boston’s already COVID-impacted roster to take a another hit for at least one game.

Duran was penciled in center field with Alex Verdugo in left, but Cora moved Kyle Schwarber from first base to left, Verdugo to center and inserted Dalbec at first.

The Red Sox were already down with four position players on the COVID-19-related injured list: shortstop Xander Bogaerts, second baseman Christian Arroyo, infielder/outfielder Kiké Hernández and recently recalled infielder/outfielder Yairo Muñoz.

All of them (along with four relievers) went on the COVID list either with a positive test or close contact in the first six days of Boston’s recently completed seven-game road trip against Cleveland and AL East-leading Tampa Bay.