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 »

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 »

Jerry Remy

NESN Red Sox analyst Jerry Remy made his weekly appearance on the Dennis & Callahan show Thursday morning in a discussion that involved his thoughts on what should happen to Will Middlebrooks once Kevin Youkilis returns from injury.

“I would say Pawtucket because you don’t want him doing nothing,” Remy said. “They’ve already kind of eliminated the fact that he might go to the outfield. What else is he going to do?

“Sitting on the bench, not being able to help the team on the bench doesn’t make much sense for a guy who is still developing and is one of your prime prospects. The only option I see is having him go to Pawtucket because I just don’t see a place for him anywhere else on the ballclub.”

Middlebrooks, who hit three home runs in his first four games in the majors this season, has cooled off a bit as of late. In his last three games, Middlebrooks has hit 2-for-12 with seven strikeouts, dropping his batting average from .310 to .278 during that stretch.

“Any time a young player comes up and had early success like he has had, they try to find other ways to get him out,” Remy said. “What I have noticed is they are throwing a lot more breaking balls and offspeed pitches to him right now to see how he handles that.”

There has been speculation that if Middlebrooks can get back to the form that he started his season with, the Red Sox may look into trading Youkilis to open a spot for the 23-year-old. However, Remy noted that Youkilis has to prove his value to teams before the Red Sox can trade him.

“[Youkilis] would have to play first,” Remy said. “He is going to have to prove to people that he is healthy for an extended period of time and that he will produce. The only way you do that is by playing. Not in Pawtucket. Not on the bench for Boston.”

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 »

Mike Aviles has been one of the best defensive shortstops in the majors this year. (AP)

All spring, the clamor for Jose Iglesias was driven by a chief force, namely, the idea that his spectacular defense would outweigh any offensive deficiencies he might have. That assessment was a direct reflection upon the sense that Mike Aviles was not an adequate defender at the position. He was expected to be a downgrade from Marco Scutaro, let alone a Gold Glove-caliber defender in Iglesias.

With 35 games now in the books, something unexpected has happened. Foremost, Aviles has been among the best defensive shortstops in the majors.

The small sample disclaimer is necessary. Typically, defense is best evaluated — at least from a statistical standpoint — over multiple seasons. A couple of months thus can be deceiving. Nonetheless, the initial returns on what Aviles has done at the position are eye-opening.

The John Dewan Plus/Minus evaluation system (which examines every ball hit into a player’s defensive zone and compares the number of plays made by a single player to the average number of plays made on such balls) suggests that Aviles has made 13 more plays than the average shortstop on the balls hit in his direction this season. He’s made five more plays than the average shortstop on balls hit to his right, three more than average to his left (where his positioning, range and strong arm has allowed him to make a number of plays behind the second base bag) and four more than average on pop-ups. In Dewan’s system, that defensive wizardry has translated to 10 runs saved, the second highest total among all big league shortstops. Fangraphs.com’s UZR statistic pegs Aviles as the fourth best shortstop in the majors, 2.5 runs better than the average shortstop.

With Aviles performing as an above-average defender on the left side and reigning Gold Glovers Dustin Pedroia and Adrian Gonzalez on the right side, infield defense has been a strength of the Red Sox in the early going.

“I think we’re playing pretty good defense, especially on the infield,” said manager Bobby Valentine. “[Aviles has been] huge. I don’t want to jinx him, but he’s made all the progressions. He’s learning to move with hitters and position himself properly. He always knows the speed of the runner. He’s been huge. The stability of him has been huge for our defense.”

That said, while the infield defense has been solid, the Sox’ defensive efficiency rating (meaning the number of balls in play turned into outs) is 23rd in the majors. That, however, reflects primarily on a makeshift outfield that is without Jacoby Ellsbury and Carl Crawford.

OTHER NOTES Read the rest of this entry »

Will Middlebrooks hit his first big league homer on Sunday. (AP)

As he demolished Triple-A pitching this season, the excitement about Will Middlebrooks built steadily. In the matter of a single homestand, that promise and potential that has been so commonly associated with the 23-year-old was on full display. On Sunday, it was encapsulated most dramatically by a single swing of the bat.

With the Red Sox trailing 5-1 and the bases loaded, Middlebrooks stepped up to the plate and delivered in a big way, sending a Tommy Hunter pitch over the Green Monster and onto a parking garage on Lansdowne Street, transforming what had been a rout into a tie ballgame.

“It was probably the biggest rush of my life, to be honest,” Middlebrooks said after the game.

Though the Red Sox ultimately lost 9-6 in what turned out to be a 17-inning, six-hour affair, the emergence of Middlebrooks — who was rated as the organization’s top prospect by Baseball America heading into the 2012 season — was undoubtedly the biggest positive for the Sox in a 1-5 homestand in which silver linings were few and far between.

With Kevin Youkilis on the 15-day disabled list with a lower back strain, this recent homestand has provided Middlebrooks with his chance to prove his value at the major league level after posting impressive numbers this season in Pawtucket. In 24 games with the PawSox, the 23-year-old third baseman slugged nine home runs, which placed him second among International League batters, to go along with a .333 batting average, .380 OBP, .677 slugging mark, 1.057 OPS and 27 RBIs.

After being called up, Middlebrooks wasted no time in his debut, going 2-for-3 with a walk and a stolen base on May 2 against Oakland and adding a double in six plate appearances on Friday. Tightness in his left hamstring forced Middlebrooks out of Saturday’s 8-2 loss to the Orioles. Read the rest of this entry »