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

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– 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 »

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)

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– 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 »

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 »

Lars Anderson had a big day against left-handed pitchers. (AP)

The members of the Triple-A Pawtucket lineup had an interesting barometer of sorts in the form of a 240-game winner.

Left-hander Andy Pettitte was on the hill for Scranton Wilkes-Barre on Sunday, and while it would be a mistake to read too much into one outing as the 39-year-old continues to work his way back into big league shape, it was notable to see what the PawSox did against him. Pettitte allowed five runs (three earned) on eight hits in five innings. While Pettitte told reporters that his command wasn’t as sharp as it needs to be and that he’s having a difficult time maintaining the necessary start-to-start focus in the minor league setting, from the vantage point of members of the PawSox lineup, there is also something to be said for enjoying success against one of the best pitchers of the last baseball generation.

Lars Anderson, Jose Iglesias and Ryan Lavarnway all had notable performances for the PawSox, while further down, left-handers Drake Britton and Henry Owens both had, in their own ways, dominant performances, and in Greenville, outfielder Keury De La Cruz continued one of the most interesting performances by a relatively unheralded Sox prospect at the start of this season.

TRIPLE-A PAWTUCKET RED SOX: 7-5 WIN AT SCRANTON WILKES-BARRE (YANKEES)

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– Jose Iglesias very well may be amidst the best offensive stretch of his career. He doesn’t need to hit for power to be a very good major league shortstop. He simply needs to spray line drives around the field, deliver the occasional double, take the occasional walk and get on base at a respectable rate. Right now, he’s doing that.

On Sunday, Iglesias had his fifth straight multi-hit game, getting a single (a comebacker) and a walk before flying out to right in three plate appearances against Andy Pettitte, and later adding a single on a line drive to right. In his last five games, Iglesias is now 10-for-18 (.556) with a double, a triple and three walks. He is reaching base at a .619 clip in that span. In the process, he’s elevated his average (.253) and OBP (.330) to roughly league average numbers in the Triple-A International League, where the average batting average is .250 and OBP is .330. His power (.293) remains deficient (league average is .379), but the Red Sox would gladly take a shortstop with average on-base skills, below-average power and outrageous, game-changing defensive skills.

Prior to this stretch, Iglesias had never before had multiple hits in more than three straight games (a stretch that came in May 2011 in Pawtucket). Right now, his results suggest someone who is developing an approach at the plate that has him closer than ever to being ready to break through into the major leagues. There is more development in front of him, of course, and there is benefit to having the shortstop further solidify the offensive gains that he’s making. And the likelihood is that even with the progress he’s shown, there will be a transitional period of struggle whenever Iglesias does reach the big leagues.

That said, for perhaps the first time in his Triple-A career, Iglesias has been performing at a level that suggests that he is not overmatched by the advanced pitching that he is facing and, on the contrary, that he is capable of being on the other side of the development curve, even against a pitcher of considerable profile such as Pettitte.

– Lars Anderson also had a strong day against Pettitte and fellow left-hander Juan Cedeno. He collected two hits in as many plate appearances against Pettitte (a single to right, a double to center) and later added a double to left against Cedeno. That performance made Anderson’s season against southpaws look dramatically different. He is now hitting .292/.379/.375/.754 against lefties, and the doubles were his first two extra-base hits in 29 plate appearances against lefties.

Anderson has had two doubles in each of the last two games, going 5-for-10 and improving his season-long totals to .274/.353/.438/.791. Though he has just one homer so far this year, he does have 10 extra-base hits in 19 games. Read the rest of this entry »

Right-hander Matt Barnes has thrown 16 scoreless innings to start his pro career. (John Corneau / Lowell Spinners)

Matt Barnes, the 2011 top pick (No. 19 overall) of the Red Sox, enjoyed singular dominance in his five starts in Greenville, allowing just one run in 26 2/3 innings while striking out 42 and walking four. He simply overmatched his competition.

There was only one nit to pick. The 21-year-old, one of the top college arms in last year’s draft, had the pedigree that suggested that he was better tested by more advanced competition, rather than in a Single-A South Atlantic League where few opposing hitters have ever seen the combination of a mid-90s fastball and a swing-and-miss curveball along the lines of what Barnes features (along with a promising but still-developing changeup). Barnes would be tested more properly, it seemed safe to assume, at higher levels.

And so, his debut with High-A Salem on Saturday night merited considerable curiosity. Yet the result was, in some respects, more dominant than anything Barnes had done while pitching in Greenville.

Though he allowed one run on four hits and a walk, he struck out 12 batters, nine of them swinging. It was the first time that Barnes had reached double digits in strikeouts as a pro. And so, with that outing, any asterisk was removed. Barnes leads the minors with 54 strikeouts and is second in pro ball with a 0.55 ERA through six starts. If he has more performances like Saturday’s, the question will rapidly shift from the one that hovered over his first five starts — when will he be promoted to Salem? — to the matter of whether he might make another move to Double-A Portland this summer.

The Sox have had pitchers make it up to Portland in their first full pro season. Most recently, it was 2009 second-rounder Alex Wilson who made the jump, though Wilson was 23 and had pitched in the summer he was drafted in Lowell. Justin Masterson likewise went from High-A to Double-A in his first full pro season, but he, too, had pitched for Lowell.

Barnes, who signed on Aug. 15 (too late to pitch in Lowell), had never pitched in a pro game entering this year. But so far, there has been no evidence of his experience deficit. There has only been excellence, something that he has carried — for at least one start — to a new level.

TRIPLE-A PAWTUCKET RED SOX: 9-3 WIN AT SCRANTON WILKES-BARRE (YANKEES)

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– Mark Melancon allowed a couple hits but kept his 0.00 ERA intact in an inning in which he struck out one and got two groundballs. He has now thrown 7 2/3 innings over seven games, and he has recorded all 23 of his outs via either strikeout (12) or groundball (11). 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 »

Jose iglesias hit the ground running in his return to Triple-A. (AP)

Jose Iglesias did not appear in either of the two games for which he was summoned to the majors, and so with Will Middlebrooks now up in place of Kevin Youkilis, the Red Sox moved swiftly to option him back to Pawtucket so that he could return to the lineup on Thursday. The result was one of the better stat lines of Iglesias’ professional career. He went 2-for-3 with a pair of walks, matching a career high (achieved four times in 2010 with Double-A Portland, and never before in Triple-A) by reaching base four times.

It is interesting to note that Iglesias, who endured periods of trying to pull the ball in the past, seems more comfortable than ever going up the middle and to the opposite field. His singles (one a line drive to right, one a grounder to second) both were to the right side of the field, while his out was on a ball hit to center. During the spring, the most notable aspect of his game was that he was driving the ball to center in a way that made center fielders have to go back on the ball.

All of that is consistent with Red Sox farm director Ben Crockett‘s claim that Iglesias is showing an approach that was not properly reflected by his numbers. After Friday, he is hitting .216/.300/.227/.527.

One caveat in Iglesias’ day: Toledo starter Casey Crosby issued seven walks, so there was a bit of a chicken-and-egg question with regards to Iglesias’ patience on Thursday.

TRIPLE-A PAWTUCKET RED SOX: 6-4 LOSS AT TOLEDO (DETROIT)

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– Back in Triple-A, Junichi Tazawa submitted a dominant outing. He retired all seven batters he faced, striking out five and getting two on groundouts. Between Triple-A and the majors, Tazawa now has 10 appearances this year (five with the Red Sox, five with the PawSox) and has yet to allow a run. He’s struck out 18 and walked two in 15 2/3 innings between the two levels. Read the rest of this entry »