Right-hander Stolmy Pimentel tossed six shutout innings in Double-A on Saturday. (AP)

The 2011 season was little short of a disaster for right-hander Stolmy Pimentel. He was battered to the tune of an 0-9 record and 9.12 ERA last year in Double-A Portland, resulting in that cruelest of things in July, a demotion to High-A Salem, a level that Pimentel thought had been left in his rearview mirror.

There, Pimentel was better though still not overpowering. He went 6-4 with a 4.53 ERA, 35 strikeouts and 16 walks in 51 2/3 innings.

The Sox, however, insisted that there was promise in the pitcher’s stuff, if not his results. He showed the best velocity of his career, touching as high as 97 mph, rediscovered a swing-and-miss changeup after he went back to Salem and shelved a curveball in favor of a slider that demonstrated greater promise as a legitimate breaking ball. His pitch mix suggested that he remained one of the better pitching prospects in the Red Sox system, but entering his second year on the 40-man roster in 2012, he needed to start demonstrating the sort of results to match, something that Pimentel himself understood entering the year.

“Last year, I had a bad year. But you have to learn from that,” he said this spring. “I’m not thinking about last year. I’m worried about this year, doing what I need to do to get better and be positive.

“Every day, you have to have a goal. You have to think about progress, not go back,” he continued. “I feel like I’m young. I know I’m going to be growing up. I know I have the stuff. What I need to do is be more focused, more consistent outing to outing, keep in my mind to have really good command of both sides of home plate. When you get that combination, everything will be good.”

Pimentel was slowed in spring training with a lat strain that rendered him unable to begin his season (back in Double-A Portland) until April 27. Since doing so, however, his results have aligned more closely with his stuff than at any point last year.

That continued on Saturday (his first start in 10 days after he’d been skipped in his previous scheduled start due to a minor back issue), as he logged six shutout innings, allowing four hits (three singles and a double) while striking out six and walking two. In four starts in Portland, he now has a 2.95 ERA, 17 strikeouts and just five walks in 21 1/3 innings. He is attacking hitters in a manner that suggests he has recovered the confidence that was nowhere in evidence in Portland a year ago.

“He’s brought a three-pitch mix to the table in each of his starts. He’s throwing a lot of strikes. He’s really gotten ahead and pounded the strike zone. The velocity has been good, up to 96,” Red Sox farm director Ben Crockett observed prior to Pimentel’s most recent start. “He’s come out and really hit the ground running in Portland.”

TRIPLE-A PAWTUCKET RED SOX: 8-4 LOSS AT NORFOLK (ORIOLES)

(BOX)

– Third baseman Kevin Youkilis went 1-for-4 with a single and a pair of strikeouts. In three rehab games, he is now 3-for-9 with a double, a walk and four strikeouts, having whiffed twice in each of the last two games. Read the rest of this entry »

Carl Crawford hasn’t played yet this season. Jacoby Ellsbury was lost in the season’s earliest days. Longtime lineup staple Kevin Youkilis has been out for three weeks. Cody Ross, second on the team in homers and RBI, was unavailable on Saturday.

No matter. Even with their lineup ravaged by injuries, the Red Sox offense continued to perform at a level as impactful as any in the game in a 7-5 victory in Philadelphia. When Mike Aviles launched a leadoff homer in the top of the first inning, it was a harbinger of a Red Sox show of strength, as the team slammed four homers and delivered six extra-base hits.

Even with their lineup decimated, the team leads all of baseball (by a lot) with 166 extra-base hits. The team’s average of 5.4 runs per game ranks second in the AL (to Texas, which has plated 5.6 runs a contest) and third in the majors. Through roughly one-quarter of the season, the lineup is elite. That has positioned the Sox to enjoy success so long as the pitching staff can prove adequate, which was roughly the formula that the team followed for its 7-5 win in Philadelphia on Saturday night.

WHAT WENT RIGHT FOR THE RED SOX

–When catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia left Friday’s game due to a laceration of his ear, it seemed fair to wonder whether he might land on the disabled list. The idea that he might be able to catch on Saturday, less than 24 hours after a foul ball caught him on the ear, seemed far-fetched.

Yet catch he did, and Saltalamacchia was not merely a warm body behind the plate — he was a force. The catcher went 3-for-4 while smashing a solo homer (his sixth) to right-center while batting left-handed and later scorching a double to the wall in left-center while batting right-handed. Read the rest of this entry »

Outfielder Keury De La Cruz (Darrell Snow / Greenville Drive)

Keury De La Cruz has never been prominently mentioned as a Red Sox prospect. He signed for just $120,000 out of the Dominican as a 17-year-old in early 2009, having been passed over as a 16-year-old the previous summer. But his performance to date in the Sox system — particularly in a 2012 season that has represented a breakout seasonto date — has served as a reminder of the unpredictable nature of the market for Latin American amateurs, for whom multi-million dollar bonuses have been anything but a guarantee of success, while far more modest bonuses have netted quality big leaguers.

The Sox scouted De La Cruz a number of times before signing him in Feb. 2009. Despite a 5-foot-11 frame and a lack of strength at the time, the Sox were impressed by a swing that suggested projectable power once he filled out.

“He wasn’t strong then, but he had natural loft and showed the ability to drive the ball. He just didn’t have muscle behind it to make it go anywhere,” said Sox international scouting director Eddie Romero. “[Former Sox international scouting director Craig Shipley] said, ‘You can project power on this guy. He was right.”

That is certainly proving the case this year. On Friday, De La Cruz continued his phenomenal season in Single-A Greenville, going 3-for-5 with a double and triple to improve his line for the season to .329/.374/.579/.953. The left-handed hitter continued to do damage against southpaws (all three Power pitchers were left-handers), improving to .347/.439/.612/1.051 against them. His .579 slugging percentage is the third best among the organization’s minor leaguers, behind only Will Middlebrooks and Mauro Gomez (counting only the minor league stats for both). He has seven homers, nine doubles and four triples, averaging better than one extra-base hit for every two games.

His strong performance this year is impressive enough in its own right, but it is even more significant in that it demonstrates a prospect who endured struggles, learned from them and went on a mission to get better as a results of those lessons. De La Cruz, a strong performer in both the Dominican Summer League in 2009 and the Rookie Level Gulf Coast League in 2010, struggled in 2011 against more advanced pitching in a New York-Penn League that is loaded with college arms making their professional debuts. His numbers weren’t disastrous, but his line of .263/.292/.390/.682 was hardly head-turning.

But he used that experience as the basis for improvement.

“He didn’t look at it as a bad season. Usually, players look at the numbers and say, ‘I stunk.’ But he said, I didn’t hit what I wanted to and didn’t hit as many homers as I wanted to, but I learned a lot,” said Romero. “He went in with his old approach and realized it wasn’t working and that he needed to work on it in the offseason.”

That work has yielded a greater commitment to driving the ball to all fields and hitting the ball where it’s pitched. With positive results in that regard has come greater confidence and a more consistent approach in the box.

“When he was younger, he liked to tinker,” said Romero. “Now, he’s kind of focused on one, and he’s seeing the results.”

The results have been eye-opening for a player described as a hard-nosed gamer who plays the game with a positive intensity. De La Cruz did not enter the year with a prominent place on anyone’s prospect radar — he fell outside Baseball America’s top 30 prospects in the organization, for instance — but he is quickly making a case to move up quickly, at a time when his performance at a relatively young age (20) suggests that he could emerge one day as an everyday big-league corner outfielder.

TRIPLE-A PAWTUCKET RED SOX: 6-5 LOSS AT DURHAM

(BOX)

– In his first game at third base on his rehab assignment, Kevin Youkilis went 1-for-3 with a single and two strikeouts. Defensively, he had three assists (starting one double play turn) and caught a pop-up. Read the rest of this entry »

Cody Ross, much to the chagrin of Phillies fans, had a lot of hardware to hoist in 2010. (AP)

City of Brotherly Love? To Cody Ross, that sort of title for Philadelphia would be laughable.

Ross is returning to a city and ballpark that he demolished two postseasons ago. As such, at Citizens Bank Ballpark, he will almost assuredly be given a welcome reserved for the most infamous villains.

And in a way, he qualifies for the designation, thanks to a 2010 playoff series in which he pulverized Phillies pitching and played an immense role in leading the Giants to an NLCS triumph over Philadelphia and an eventual World Series title.

Ross was locked in during that series. He jumpstarted the Giants by slamming a pair of solo homers against Roy Halladay in San Francisco’s Game 1 victory, and he went on to go 7-for-20 with three homers, three doubles and a .350/.435/.950/1.385 line en route to NLCS MVP honors.

Yet with that honor came outrage from the fans of the team that he beat.

One publication called him “the worst thing to happen to this country since Lee Harvey Oswald.” Enmity towards the outfielder inspired the manufacture and sale of a T-shirt to publicize the sentiment.

And then, of course, there was the Facebook page called simply, ‘I Hate Cody Ross.’

“I didn’t know about it until my mom brought it up,” Ross recounted of the Facebook page. “I was like, wow, that’s pretty interesting that somebody would go out of their way to make an I hate Cody Ross Facebook page, to take some time.

“It’s understandable,” he added. “They are passionate about their team. They want their team to win. They don’t like to see them lose. That year that we beat them, they were supposed to run away with it. It ended up going the other way. You can understand why they got so upset about it. But to have a Facebook page, that may be going a little far.”
 Read the rest of this entry »

Right-hander Matt Barnes has the lowest ERA in the minors after six shutout innings on Thursday (Darrell Snow / Greenville Drive)

Matt Barnes, the minor league leader in strikeouts, had his fewest punchouts of the season, tallying “just” five over six innings in his eighth start of the year (and his third since being promoted to High-A Salem) while relying primarily on his fastball. Yet he enjoyed his best statistical line.

The right-hander permitted just three baserunners — two on singles, one on a walk — in delivering six shutout innings, needing just 74 pitches (47 strikes) to get through the outing. It was the first time he had not given up a run in a High-A start (though in fairness, he gave up just one earned run in each of his first two starts at the level). Three starts into his time at Salem, Barnes now has a 1.00 ERA while averaging 12.5 strikeouts and one walk per nine innings. Opponents are hitting .175 against him.

Barnes, of course, will need a more complete mix in order to continue his dominance. But on Thursday, he kept his swing-and-miss curve and changeup in his pocket for most of the game, since his fastball command and life were good enough to mow through the Carolina lineup.

It wasn’t preplanned, but that emphasis on his fastball has developmental value, since the Sox have wanted Barnes to work on further honing his fastball command — something that can be difficult to do when throwing 94-98 mph in the lower levels of the minors, with the sort of velocity on which young hitters rarely can punish missed locations.

This is the challenge of Barnes’ development to date. His stuff is simply better than the level of competition at which he’s been playing. Even on a day when he leans primarily on one pitch, he can dominate.

At 21, he has been overpowering. His 0.60 ERA is the best in the minors. He continues to lead the minors with 67 punchouts. His 0.65 WHIP is the best in the minors, and opponents’ .148 batting average against him is the fifth lowest in the minors. It is the sort of performance that forces prospects onto a fast track, simply in order to ensure that they are challenged enough to continue their development.

TRIPLE-A PAWTUCKET RED SOX: 5-0 LOSS AT DURHAM (RAYS)

(BOX)

– Daisuke Matsuzaka recorded the longest outing of his minor league rehab assignment, delivering 6 2/3 innings in Durham for Triple-A Pawtucket, but the right-hander was once again touched for a pair of homers while allowing five runs (four earned) on seven hits. He struck out three and walked none while throwing 64 of 95 pitches (67 percent) for strikes, and he was charged with the loss in Pawtucket’s 5-0 defeat. Read the rest of this entry »

Garin Cecchini delivered a walkoff double on Wednesday (Darrell Snow / Greenville Drive)

In all likelihood, Gavin Cecchini will not be a member of the Red Sox. The highly regarded shortstop is a near lock to be off the board by the time the Red Sox have a chance to make their first first-round selection at No. 24 overall.

Of course, the fact that the Red Sox have another Cecchini — third baseman Garin Cecchini — in their system required a special confluence of circumstances. Garin Cecchini entered 2010 as one of the most highly regarded amateur prospects around. On a Team USA squad in 2009 that featured Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, there was a case to be made that Cecchini outperformed both, going 8-for-24 while leading the team in OBP (.529) and slugging (.708).

But he blew out his ACL before his senior year, and so with medical questions surrounding a player who was content to go to college at LSU if his first-round price tag wasn’t met, he slipped in the draft. He was there for the taking in the fourth round, and the Sox were thrilled to get an extremely advanced high school hitter with a significant offensive ceiling.

Cecchini has been slowed by injuries — because of the ACL repair, he was unable to play in games after the Sox signed him for a $1.31 million bonus in 2010, and last year, after a strong showing at Lowell, his season ended after just a month when he suffered a hairline fracture after being drilled on the wrist by a fastball — but when on the field, he has looked like everything that the Sox thought they were getting.

On Wednesday, he delivered a two-run, walkoff double with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, turning a 4-3 deficit into a 5-4 victory. It was Cecchini’s second hit of the game, giving him six multi-hit games in his last nine contests, a stretch in which he is hitting .385/.442/.641/1.083. For the year, Cecchini is now hitting .301/.367/.434/.800. Cecchini’s numbers against right-handers are particularly impressive this year, as he’s hitting .344/.402/.527/.929 against them, with 14 of his 15 extra-base hits coming against righties. In his last 27 games, Cecchini is hitting .349/.408/.495/.904, looking very much like the advanced player who was named the second best prospect in the New York-Penn League last summer.

TRIPLE-A PAWTUCKET RED SOX: 5-4 WIN AT DURHAM (RAYS)

(BOX)

– Kevin Youkilis, serving as the designated hitter in the first game of his rehab assignment, drew a six-pitch walk, fouled off a pair of 2-2 pitches before flying to deep right in his second plate appearance and then doubled off the glove of the Durham third baseman to finish his day 1-for-2 with a double and walk in his three plate appearances. Youkilis is slated to be back in the PawSox lineup while playing third base on Thursday, a game in which Daisuke Matsuzaka will be on the hill. Read the rest of this entry »

Jose Iglesias had been hitting like crazy since the last day of April, but the 22-year-old shortstop had been spraying line drives around the park. Even during a stretch of 11 games that included seven multi-hit contests, he had totaled just two extra-base hits.

And so, Tuesday represented a notable milestone for Iglesias. The shortstop cleared the left-field fence for his first homer of the year, lining a fastball off of Rays prospect (and UMass alum) Matt Torra just over the left field wall in Durham. It was part of a 3-for-5 night in which Iglesias matched a season high for hits while delivering just his second career homer, the continuation of a stretch in which Iglesias has gotten the best results of his career.

Since April 30, when Iglesias collected a pair of hits to nudge his average up to .200 for the season’s first month, the shortstop has been on a tear. In 12 games, he’s hitting .388 (fifth in the International League in that stretch) with a .423 OBP (10th in the league), .510 slugging mark and .933 OPS (11th). For the first time, he’s showing in a sustained stretch — dating to even before the start of the hot streak — that he has adjusted to the level of competition in an advanced league that features pitchers with legitimate breaking balls and, in many cases, big league experience.

For the season, Iglesias now has a line of .262/.322/.315/.637. It’s not a spectacular performance, but it nearly replicates the league average (.250/.326/.376/.702) at a level that features much older competition. And the more recent performance — which is also noteworthy for the fact that Iglesias has struck out just four times while walking three times over this stretch of 52 plate appearances — lends credence to the notion that the shortstop can be more than a defensive hitter who is a zero in the lineup.

TRIPLE-A PAWTUCKET RED SOX: 8-2 WIN AT DURHAM (RAYS)

(BOX)

– Like Iglesias, Che-Hsuan Lin started to get hot at the end of an otherwise tough April and has been hitting ever since. He went 2-for-3 with a walk on Tuesday, and in his last 14 games, he’s hitting .372 (seventh in the International League since April 30) with a .491 OBP (third), .488 slugging mark and .979 OPS (10th). The 23-year-old now has a better-than-league-average line of .264/.359/.382/.741, and given his excellent defense in center field, the performance is intriguing.

Lin has struggled with being too passive at times throughout his minor league career, something that has driven high walks totals and solid OBPs despite low batting averages. But hitting coordinator Victor Rodriguez and PawSox hitting coach Gerald Perry have been working with the native of Taiwan to be ready to hone that passiveness into selectivity with a readiness to take some rips at pitches that he can handle, with positive results to date this year.

“He’s really worked on his approach at the plate,” said farm director Ben Crockett. “He’s someone who does such a good job of taking pitches and working the count that sometimes it can work against him. He’s really trying to make the adjustment of being ready to attack, and I think it’s paid off a little bit in the numbers and will continue to be a focus for him.” Read the rest of this entry »