When Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow spoke to the media following the shocking Rafael Devers trade in June, most of the attention was understandably on the reasons why the team decided to send away its superstar slugger.
In the midst of that virtual press conference, though, Breslow tossed in one line about one of the returning pieces in that trade — a comment that indicated he and the front office had very, very high hopes for one player in particular.
“We’re absolutely excited about bringing in Jordan Hicks, a dominant late-inning reliever into our mix,” Breslow said.
Thus far, Hicks has not lived up to the billing, and his performance on Monday night in Minnesota was his second downright ugly outing in the span of a week.
With Aroldis Chapman hurt and Garrett Whitlock sick, Hicks was tasked with securing the 4-3 lead, which the Red Sox had taken with an RBI single from Roman Anthony in the top of the ninth. Yet after Hicks warmed up, heavy rains rolled into Minnesota and caused a 90-minute delay.
When he came back out for the bottom of the ninth, he gave up a single to DaShawn Keirsey Jr. before hitting Mickey Gasper with a wild slider.
After hitting Gasper, Hicks’ very next pitch resulted in another hit batsman, this time putting Willi Castro — who had been squaring to bunt — aboard to load the bases. Hicks did induce a fielder’s choice from Carlos Correa to record the first out of the inning, but Brooks Lee was able to slap an 0-2 fastball into left field, plating two runs and giving Minnesota a 5-4 walk-off victory.
The blown save for Hicks came exactly one week after his disastrous outing in Philadelphia. Though that one was overshadowed by the rare walk-off catcher’s interference, Hicks issued a four-pitch walk to the first batter he faced and then threw a wild pitch when Max Kepler tried to lay down a sacrifice bunt. Just three of Hicks’ 10 pitches that night were strikes.
Hicks did make two scoreless appearances in between those outings, but overall, he’s allowed at least one run in four of his nine appearances with Boston. He’s struggled with command, throwing strikes on just 57.2 percent of his pitches in July. He has two losses and a blown save to go with his two successful saves thus far. He’s posted a 4.91 ERA and a 1.636 WHIP in his 7 1/3 innings of work, with five strikeouts, five walks, and two hit batsmen. That all might technically show some improvement from his 6.47 ERA in San Francisco this year, but he’s still a far cry from the “dominant late-inning reliever” that Breslow excitedly sold the fan base six weeks ago.
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