This story was excerpted from Ian Browne’s Red Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
BOSTON -- It was a perfectly placed swinging bunt that Matt Chapman put down in the top of the sixth inning at Fenway Park on Wednesday night, and just about everyone in the ballpark was ready to go onto the next play after what seemed an inevitable single that would have put runners at first and second with nobody out.
But there was one person who thought a play could be made on a roller that had an exit velocity of 57.9 mph, and that was perhaps the most underrated player on the Red Sox.
Catcher Connor Wong roared down the third-base line, slid to the ground on his left shin guard and fired to first base, getting Chapman by maybe a half a step. It was the best highlight in Boston’s 6-2 win over the Giants.
Did Wong think he had a realistic chance to get an out on a roller that looked headed to no-man’s land?
“Yes,” said Wong. “Yeah, it’s a cool play, but I’m confident in myself to make that play, so I think it should be made. I think I saw it up there [on the clubhouse television] somewhere. It was actually really close, huh?”
Only then did a slight smile come over the face of Boston’s normally stoic catcher.
Make no mistake about it: It was a jaw-dropping play that made everyone take notice.
“He's a super-athletic player as we saw on that play,” said Red Sox righty Kutter Crawford, who was on the mound when the play happened. “That might have been the best play I've ever seen out of a catcher. He looked really good doing it, really smooth.”
The Red Sox have often spoken of Wong’s athleticism in glowing terms, but perhaps it took a play like the one he made Wednesday night to really make it come to light.
“Trevor [Story] is up there as far as the athlete [on our team],” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “But Connor is right there with him. If you ask [strength and conditioning coach] Kiyoshi [Momose] as far as the assessments and numbers, this guy is a freak.”
Wong’s heroics behind the plate shouldn’t overshadow the way he has improved on the other side of the ball this first month of the season.
That was again on display Wednesday, as Wong supported his team’s cause at the plate with three hits, including a pair of doubles.
Through 21 games and 71 at-bats, Wong has a slash line of .366/.387/.620, with five homers and 14 RBIs.
“I think the swing is just a little shorter now,” said Wong. “So the path is better able to put them forward instead of fouling them off.”
Two-way catchers are hard to find, but Wong has one of the best in Red Sox history coaching him every day in Jason Varitek.
“[Wong] learned a lot last year,” said Cora. “He played a lot of games, he went through slumps. We played him a lot and he’s becoming one of the leaders too. You can see that attitude. Obviously, he has the leader with him every single day. Learning from Tek, that’s awesome.”
You can see Varitek’s influence on Wong in not just his skillset, but his demeanor.
“He’s just focused every day he shows up to the field,” Crawford said of Wong. “You see it in the game. He doesn't smile a whole lot because he’s always thinking about the next pitch, the next play, how to get the next hitter out. I think that's the biggest thing I've noticed for him is he shows up to work every day with a mission on how to get better.”