Sawamura clutch; Bogaerts 'underrated'

BOSTON -- It might not have seemed like a high-leverage spot on Friday night when Hirokazu Sawamura came on in place of a faltering Martín Pérez in the fourth inning with two runners on and two out.

But in hindsight, it was one of the biggest spots of the night, and the Japanese righty fired a 91.3 mph slider that the Mariners' Mitch Haniger waved weakly at to end the inning.

That kept the lead intact for the Red Sox, and Sawamura came back out for three big outs in the fifth -- two of them on strikeouts -- and wound up picking up his first Major League win as Boston edged Seattle, 7-6.

When Sawamura first arrived from Japan during Spring Training, he was getting used to the new baseball and wasn’t able to bury his splitter like he did in that key spot against Haniger.

“I’m not fully satisfied with the way I’m throwing the splitter,” Sawamura said through an interpreter on Saturday. “But each day it’s getting better. I think I’m getting the hang of it now and I’ve been able to throw my splitter with confidence. The outing last night I ran into a situation where I needed a punchout, so in that sense I was able to do that, get a good grip on my splitter and drop it in pretty well, and locate it where I wanted it.”

Sawamura knows there will be different types of situations he will need to execute with equal precision in the coming weeks and months to earn a trusted spot in manager Alex Cora’s bullpen.

“Moving forward there will be a situation where I have to get a double play, and in that sense, I will have to get a shallower grip on my splitter to make him hit a grounder,” Sawamura said. "I have to decrease the velo on the splitter a little bit to get more grounders.”

There are other adjustments beyond pitching when you’ve lived on a different continent your entire life. For Sawamura, staying at his normal pitching weight had been a challenge until recently.

“In terms of the adjustments, I would say weight change is the biggest one. When I was in Japan, it was pretty easy to maintain my weight,” Sawamura said. “After coming here because of the jet lag and changes in the environment and everything it was harder to maintain my weight. I think I’m getting used to the weight change and the environment change, and I have been able to keep up with my weight.”

For clarification, Sawamura was saying that the culture change was making him lose weight rather than gain it.

“I would say the white rice is the biggest difference,” Sawamura said. “I couldn’t get a rice cooker for a long time and after I got that, finally I was able to eat white rice. I think the difference in the daily life, I think time will solve that. I will let the time solve that.”

At this point, Cora has been using Sawmaura in the mid-innings. That could change the more comfortable he gets with his pitch mix.

“I think he feels more comfortable in the environment, in the clubhouse, in the bullpen, just being around,” Cora said. “So, that was huge for us [Friday], that inning and a third, that was very important for us to get to the next level. And we like what we see.”

Cora: Bogaerts is ‘underrated’

With two World Series championship rings, two All-Star appearances and three Silver Slugger Awards, Xander Bogaerts has already accomplished so much at just 28 years old.

Yet even in a market as big as Boston, his manager thinks he doesn’t get the due he deserves nationally.

“Yeah, I mean, he is underrated,” Cora said. “In the eyes of outside our world, yeah, he is. Offensively, you’ve seen what he does. Offensively [at first], he was that high average guy, hitting line drives to right field. Then in ’18, he started driving the ball. Even the other day I look at the scoreboard and it says that he had 11 home runs last year, and nobody talks about that, and they talk about, this being like a bounce-back year. He had a great offensive season, hit .300, 11 [homers] and whatever RBIs.”

Cora thinks he has some idea of why Bogaerts might not get the recognition he deserves.

“I do believe that because he's not as flashy as the other guys,” Cora said. “You’ve got Javy [Báez], you’ve got Francisco [Lindor] and Carlos [Correa], they're flashy and they’ve got their shoes, and they dye their hair and all that, but then you’ve got [Corey] Seager and [Trevor] Story, they're kind of like very similar to Xander with the way they play the game.

“But for him to play in this market, and people not recognizing him as probably the best offensive shortstop in the big leagues -- well, that's for [other] people to say -- but in my mind, like I've been saying all along and for me personally, I'm happy that he's my shortstop.”