Right-hander Matt Barnes is averaging 14.4 strikeouts per nine innings this year (Darrell Snow / Greenville Drive)

At this point, they are becoming events as much as they are starts. When Matt Barnes takes the mound, the eyes of the organization are on him.

Thus far, he has yet to disappoint. The right-hander made his seventh pro start (and second in High-A Salem) on Friday night, and he just kept overpowering hitters. Though he did permit two runs (one earned) — the largest runs total he’s permitted this year — and he was taken deep for the first time as a professional, the 2011 first-rounder (No. 19 overall) struck out eight and walked none in his six innings of work, while filling up the strike zone with an outrageous 75 percent of his pitches (59 of 79).

Barnes leads all of pro baseball — majors and minors — with 62 strikeouts. He’s walked only five. He’s shown a plus fastball (topping out at 98 mph, still reaching 96-97 mph in the later innings of his outings, capable of getting numerous swings and misses) and a plus curveball with a changeup that has a chance to grade as an above-average third offering. In his two starts since being promoted to Salem, he has a 1.50 ERA with 20 strikeouts in 12 innings. Overall this year, between his seven starts in Greenville and Salem, he is 3-0 with a 0.70 ERA, a ton of groundballs and strikeouts and a .153 batting average against.

Chaz Scoggins of the Lowell Sun recently noted the parallels between the professional debuts of Barnes and Roger Clemens. In the intervening almost three decades, it would be difficult to identify another Red Sox prospect who has been so dominant out of the gate in his pro career. That is not to say that Barnes should start clearing spots on his mantle for Cy Young awards, but for an organization that has had several lessons in the limitations of free agency and the trade market in order to acquire quality starting pitching, the fact that Barnes has hit the ground running represents one of the most promising signs that the farm system can offer.

TRIPLE-A PAWTUCKET RED SOX: 5-1 WIN VS. COLUMBUS (INDIANS)

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– Jose Iglesias went 2-for-4 with a bloop single and a bunt as his season continues its reversal since a slow April. He now has multiple hits in seven of his last nine games, hitting .429 in that stretch to improve his numbers to .259 with a .326 OBP, .293 slugging mark and .619 OPS. He also swiped a base, and is now 5-for-6 in stolen base attempts this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Jose Iglesias

On Thursday, Jose Iglesias tied a career high by reaching base four times in a game. On Friday, he did something without precedent in his previous 194 minor league games.

Iglesias went 2-for-4 with a double to center and a triple to right. It marked the first time that in his career that he has delivered multiple extra-base hits in a game. In his last three games, he is 6-for-11 with a pair of walks and the two extra-base hits. It does not mean that Iglesias is suddenly ready to blossom into an offensive star, but it is a reminder that he is capable of hot streaks in which his outstanding hand-eye coordination permit him to make consistent hard contact.

Overall, his approach shows notable progress this year, both with the fact that he’s driving the ball on a line and in the air and in the fact that he has walked 10 times and struck out just 16. The ratio of 1.6 strikeouts per walk is a drastic alteration from his prior two professional years, in which he strike out at twice that rate (3.2 strikeouts per walk).

TRIPLE-A PAWTUCKET: 5-2 WIN AT TOLEDO (TIGERS)

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– After he went 0-for-17 in his first six games of the year, Alex Hassan has been among the best hitters in the International League. In his last 16 games, the 24-year-old is hitting .358 with a .469 OBP, .528 slugging mark and .997 OPS after going 2-for-3 with a pair of doubles and a walk on Friday.

– Andrew Miller tossed a scoreless inning of relief, walking one and striking out one. Though his ERA stands at 5.73 in 10 appearances, opponents are hitting just .105 against the left-hander. His 30-day rehab clock runs out on May 6, and so the Red Sox must soon decide what to do with the lanky lefty.

– Right-hander Alex Wilson had his strongest relief appearance to date. In his fourth appearance since being shifted to relief, he made his first multi-innings appearance, tossing two shutout innings while punching out three. He walked two and allowed a single.

Read the rest of this entry »

It was a big night for a number of position prospects in the Red Sox system, with noteworthy contributions from Will Middlebrooks, Xander Bogaerts and Sean Coyle. That said, the most important performance of the day might have been a single scoreless inning, that turned in by right-hander Mark Melancon in his Triple-A debut.

None of the reliever’s four appearances in the big leagues this year occurred without at least one run being scored. In Pawtucket, he has a chance to hit the reset button, particularly now that he is working with a 0.00 ERA rather than a 49.50 mark.

TRIPLE-A PAWTUCKET RED SOX: 15-10 WIN VS. DURHAM (RAYS)

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– Another day, another terrific line for Will Middlebrooks, who is amidst the best stretch of his career. He went 2-for-4 with a homer (his third straight game with a longball), a walk, three runs and four more runs knocked in. In his last 10 games, he is hitting .395/.435/.837/1.272 with six homers and 19 RBI.

Overall, he is tied for fourth in all of the minor leagues in both homers (6) and RBI (20).

Middlebrooks only has one other streak of homers in three straight games, that coming last June 26-28 when he went deep in three consecutive contests while on a rehab assignment with the Lowell Spinners.

One interesting note on Middlebrooks’ power this year — in contrast to a year ago, when most of his power was from center to right-center, Middlebrooks is pulling more homers this year, including his three-run bomb to left in Pawtucket on Saturday night. That was his fourth homer to left this season.

– Mark Melancon made his first appearance in Triple-A, striking out two and allowing a single in a scoreless inning of work. He needed just 11 pitches (eight strikes) to blitz through his inning of work.

– Alex Hassan clubbed his first homer in Triple-A, a grand slam, to cap a 2-for-4 night.

– First baseman Mauro Gomez went 4-for-4 with a pair of homers and a walk. He’s now hitting .356/.397/.661/1.058 for the season, though most of his damage has come at home. He’s hit all four of his homers at McCoy Stadium, .500/.542/1.091/1.633 in 24 plate appearances.

DOUBLE-A PORTLAND SEA DOGS: 7-5 LOSS AT BINGHAMTON (METS) Read the rest of this entry »

Andrew Miller had mixed results in his most recent outing for the PawSox. (AP)

The good news for Andrew Miller was that he tossed 1 1/3 scoreless innings while striking out three. He came into a game in the middle of an inning (the fifth, to be exact), and after walking the first batter he faced, he settled to strike out the next hitter. He then got through a scoreless sixth before returning to the mound for the seventh, when he gave up a leadoff double, with the runner stranded by reliever Will Inman.

But … Miller walked four and allowed that double, and he required 50 pitches to record his four outs. Just 20 of those pitches were strikes. To put that in context, since 2000, there have been just 10 instances of a major league pitcher throwing 50 or more pitches while throwing strikes at a rate of 40 percent or less.

Miller has made four rehab appearances in Pawtucket (4 1/3 innings, four runs, nine strikeouts, nine walks) and two more in Greenville (two shutout innings, three strikeouts, no walks). Sox manager Bobby Valentine said on Wednesday that the team wanted to see Miller have “at least one other good performance in Triple-A,” hoping that he would build on an appearance on Monday in which he struck out the side, before getting activated from the disabled list. Whether Thursday qualified is in the eye of the beholder, though with a Yankees lineup that features Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson, the Sox could certainly benefit from having a wealth of left-handed options.

TRIPLE-A PAWTUCKET RED SOX: 11-7 WIN AT SYRACUSE (NATIONALS)

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– Alex Wilson was roughed up for six runs on eight hits and two walks in just 3 2/3 innings while allowing his first homer of the season. He struck out six.

In three starts, Wilson now has 16 strikeouts and four walks in 13 2/3 innings. Interestingly, he has an 11/0 strikeout/walk ratio against righties as compared to a 5/4 rate against lefties, with righties hitting .226 against him and lefties at .480.

– Will Middlebrooks continued his torrid stretch, going 2-for-5 with a homer and four RBI. In his last six games, he is now hitting .423 with four homers and 13 RBI. Read the rest of this entry »

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Gut morgen!

The Red Sox play a pair of split squad games, though one wonders if they would have scheduled a “B” game had they known that Carlos Silva would have fallen out of contention for a rotation spot due to a recurrence of the shoulder inflammation that rendered him unable to pitch for most of last year. After all, the Sox created extra games because they were worried about a shortage of innings for their rotation candidates. But with Silva out and neither Aaron Cook nor Ross Ohlendorf scheduled to pitch in games at this juncture, the necessity of the extra “B” games has been diminished.

Here are the lineups that the Sox will feature in Fort Myers (where they take on the Twins at Hammond Stadium at 10 a.m. in the “B” game) and Dunedin (where the Sox will play the Blue Jays at 1 p.m.): Read the rest of this entry »

Two-time All-Star closers with 2.07 career ERAs come with a price, and such was the case when the Red Sox landed Andrew Bailey (along with outfielder Ryan Sweeney) last week. The Sox had to part ways with outfielder Josh Reddick, right-hander Raul Alcantara and first baseman Miles Head, with Reddick having been the primary piece whom the A’s had to have in the deal — the young starting outfielder with several above-average tools (hitting for average, power, defense, arm) who will be under team control for the next five seasons.

The Sox didn’t have to give up any of their top prospects in the deal, but even so, the cost of those three players was meaningful. Reddick, after all, had been penciled in as the Sox’ opening day right fielder in 2012 prior to the deal.

In many ways, that fact was remarkable. Reddick entered professional baseball from a position of almost complete obscurity. He was undrafted out of high school. The Red Sox were one of three teams (along with the Reds and Angels) to show any real interest in scouting him in his one year at Middle Georgia College. Even though Sox scout Rob English and cross-checker Mike Rikard had evaluated the outfielder as a sixth-round talent, he lasted into the 17th round because the team was confident that it wasn’t in jeopardy of losing Reddick in the draft in the earlier rounds.

“This kid was a raw junior college kid who (Red Sox scouts) dug out of nowhere,” Sox assistant GM Mike Hazen noted in this look at the process that led Reddick to the Sox. “It’s a true scouting story. It’s a true, good evaluation, a gut instinct signing.”

Indeed, one can make the case that Reddick represents as impressive a “true scouting story” as the Sox have had in the last 10 drafts. He had virtually no profile when he was taken, and even though he had a great summer league performance that put him on the scouting map after he’d been drafted, Reddick received a relatively modest $140,000 bonus when he signed with the Sox. Read the rest of this entry »

Alex Hassan did double-duty at alma mater Duke, roaming the outfield grass at Jack Coombs Field on the days he didn’t pitch.

The plan when the Red Sox selected Hassan in the 20th round of the 2009 draft was initially for him to develop as a pitcher, building upon his career as a Blue Devils closer. However, after seeing his performance as a hitter and outfielder during the summer after drafting him, the Red Sox had a change of heart.

“They just told me they thought I’d make a bigger impact in the outfield,” Hassan, now with Double-A Portland, said before Saturday’s Futures at Fenway game between the Sea Dogs and the Binghamton Mets. “I was coming off a good summer, hitting and feeling good about where I was as a hitter at the time. … I was a little surprised, but I was definitely excited about the opportunity.”

A native of Milton, Hassan has always played in the shadow of Fenway’s Green Monster, building a replica in his own back yard as a kid, then learning to play off a similar wall at Portland’s Hadlock Field.

Fittingly, in Saturday’s Fenway game he played a liner off the wall well enough to hold Binghamton left fielder Brahiam Maldonado to a single. Hassan finished the game 3-for-4, including a two-run home run to straight away center to tie the game 2-2 in the bottom of the eighth before Portland eventually fell to the Binghamton Mets, 6-4, in 11 innings.

“I had good-at-bats, just grinded them out,” Hassan said. “I’m certainly really happy with the whole experience playing here today.”

The performance continued what has been a very strong season for the 23-year-old. Hassan is batting .302 with a .420 OBP (second inthe Double-A Eastern League), .469 slugging mark and .889 OPS with 11 homers for the Sea Dogs. He has already set career highs in walks (72), hits (121), doubles (32), runs (70), home runs and RBIs (59).

Hassan won’t pick any one factor that has led to his success, instead citing “a million different experiences that have shaped me as a baseball player and as a person.”

But his plate discipline – as evidenced by his high OBP and the fact that he has more walks (72) than strikeouts (70) – might also be a factor.

“I’m sure a certain amount of it is innate and something that I’m pretty good at,” Hassan says. “And then a large amount of it is just understanding what I’m trying to do when I go to the plate. And I think that comes from a lot of the Red Sox philosophies, just understanding and being coachable and listening to what they’re trying to teach us.”

Though he says in college he pictured himself as a professional pitcher, Hassan says he doesn’t think he’ll ever return to the mound, preferring the corner outfield spots where he feels more “comfortable.” He also says pitching hasn’t really aided him as a hitter.

Hassan has climbed quickly through the Red Sox farm system. In his first pro summer, he was advanced enough as a hitter to be pushed from Single-A Lowell to full-season Greenville in 2009. He then spent virtually the entire 2010 season with High-A Salem before graduating to Double-A Portland to start 2011.

Hassan says he isn’t surprised by the speed with which he’s moved through the minor leagues.

Says Hassan, “I’m happy to be where I am, happy with the development path that I’m on.”

And on Sunday, he received a reminder that a future at Fenway may be achievable in the not-too-distant future.