The current offensive drought plaguing the Boston Red Sox is well-documented at this point.
As the Red Sox have plummeted from playoff contention, the lineup has gone silent. Superstars and role players alike have stopped driving the baseball, as Boston has lost eight of its last 11 games, including four in a row entering Wednesday night.
One culprit in the case of the missing offense, fair or unfair, is catcher Danny Jansen, who the Red Sox acquired from the division rival Toronto Blue Jays at the trade deadline. He and Connor Wong have both been scuffling, leaving the catching position as a black hole in the Boston lineup.
Jansen was the lone hitter Boston brought in before the deadline, and he hasn’t done much to validate giving up a trio of prospects for half a season of his services. But there’s at least one baseball personality who still believes Jansen can make an impact.
On Wednesday, MLB Network analyst Mark DeRosa named Jansen as one of the players whose stocks he was “buying” this September.
“The numbers support that he’s going to finish strong,” DeRosa said. “He’s got a 1.021 OPS in September since 2021. So he’s a closer.”
A strong September would be a welcome development for Jansen, who has slashed just .207/.281/.310 in 20 games since he was acquired. Given that right-handed hitting was a clear priority for Boston at the deadline, that’s far from ideal production out of their only right-handed acquisition.
Jansen was injured in September 2023, but in 2022, he had a 1.007 OPS and four home runs for a Blue Jays team that made a Wild Card appearance. In 2021, when Toronto barely missed the playoffs after a torrid second half, Jansen’s September OPS was 1.072, and he hit five home runs.
Given the Red Sox’s inability to hit lefties, which they’ll see plenty of when they face the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees next week, Jansen may be one of the most important bats in the lineup down the stretch.
Of course, if the Red Sox don’t start winning soon, no hot stretch from Jansen will truly matter. But until the season is over for good, Boston has to keep searching for answers.
