If the Red Sox can take any good from Mookie Betts’ injury, it’s the door that swung wide open for somebody else to step up.
Andrew Benintendi has sprinted through that opening.
The opportunistic sophomore added to his torrid streak last night at Fenway Park, where he roped his 16th double and 10th homer of the season to led the Red Sox to a 7-1 win over the lifeless Detroit Tigers.
The Tigers have played two of the ugliest games by any opponent to visit Fenway this year, as they’ve missed the cutoff man, failed to run to first on ground balls, let a grounder roll through the middle of the infield due to miscommunication and added a handful of other small miscues that contributed to a pair of one-sided losses.
The Red Sox aren’t complaining.
Without their best player for the last 10 games, they’ve taken advantage of the opportunity by elevating Benintendi to the leadoff spot and watching him roll.
He roped an RBI double in a four-run third inning and blasted his third homer in four games 405 feet over the center-field wall in the fifth inning. He now has nine extra-base hits in 10 games out of the leadoff spot since Betts went down with a left abdomen strain.
It wasn’t a great start for Benintendi, who followed up a strong rookie season by hitting just .218 with a .706 OPS in 21 games to start the season after showing up to spring training with added muscle hoping to take a more aggressive plate approach.
Since then, he’s hit .338 with 12 doubles, three triples, nine homers and 30 RBIs in just 37 games. He’s getting on base about 40 percent of the time and is on pace to drive in over 100 runs, all while hitting near the top of the order.
The Sox finally got some production from the eight spot in the order last night, as Christian Vazquez is starting to come out of a season-long slump after he was benched for three out of four games in Houston over the weekend.
He hit a game-tying home run in the only game he started that series, then went 3-for-4 with a single, double and a homer last night. His first double started the scoring in the third inning when he banged one high off the Green Monster to drive in Rafael Devers.
In the seventh inning, he hit a near-identical ball that sailed just over the Monster for his second homer of the season. Vazquez is hitting just .203 on the year.
Eduardo Rodriguez had no trouble with the Tigers, who chased changeups and sliders and couldn’t do much with Rodriguez’s mid-90s fastball. He went 5-⅔ innings and struck out five, allowing just one run to lower his ERA to 3.68.
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