WORCESTER -- Twenty is one of sports’ magic numbers.
Twenty wins and 20 home runs in baseball. Add stolen bases to the home runs and a 20-20 season is great for a batter. Twenty goals in hockey. A 20-point night is pretty good in basketball.
The 2026 WooSox have a player with a chance to be a 20-20 man, but with a twist. Outfielder Braiden Ward could be the first batter in Boston Triple-A history with 20 stolen bases and 20 hit-by-pitches in the same season. Heading into this week’s road trip to Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, Ward has swiped 23 bases and been plunked 13 times in a schedule that is about one-third over.
The Red Sox Triple-A record for most HBP in a season is 20, set by David Eckstein for the 2000 Pawtucket Red Sox. Eckstein stole only 11 bases that season. However, he was traded to the Angels late in the year and went on to get hit five more times for their Triple-A team in Edmonton.
Ward has already tied the Worcester Red Sox record in that category. Eddy Alvarez was hit 13 times in 2024, Bobby Dalbec 13 times in 2023.
Ward has played in 32 games in the season’s first one-third. He missed time with a suspension and has been part of an outfield rotation. With Nick Sogard in Boston, Ward could see more playing time in the leadoff spot. As it is, he projects to 69 steals and an unbelievable 39 HBPs.
As the classic pest, leaning into pitches to get hit and creating mayhem on the bases, Ward is not someone the opposition likes to see in the lineup.
“Other teams hate him,” WooSox manager Iggy Suarez said, “and if he were on the other team, I’d hate him, too.”
Ward has already been a 20-20 player twice in his pro career but both times he played with two different teams. He is 27, just one step away from the major leagues and it can take a while for some players.
Eckstein was 26 when he finally broke in. He won a World Series with the Angels and wound up with a 10-year career in the big leagues.
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TRIPLE-A TRIVIA
1. Who holds the Worcester Red Sox for home runs hit by players born in New Jersey?
2. What batter is the WooSox record holder for most home runs hit by a player born in New England?
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New Triple-A umpire Chandler Durham, who worked the WooSox at Nashville series in April, has the unusual distinction of doing games in a city that has the same name as him. That has to be a short list. What other possibilities are there? Until this year it had never happened in the IL since Worcester joined the league. In the minors overall, though, there are teams in Everett (Wash.), Stockton (Cal.), Richmond (Va.), Rome (Ga.), etc. So it can’t be unique. … This has not been a great month in general for Worcester pitching but one of the bright spots has been the recent work of Noah Song. He has made six straight scoreless appearances — two inherited runners scored in that span — totaling 7 2/3 innings to drop his ERA from 8.00 to 5.61. … Worcester batters hit just five home runs in the 2-10 stretch that ended Saturday at Polar Park. The WooSox are on a pace to hit the fewest homers in team history and have trended down in recent seasons. Through 48 games Worcester has 42 home runs. Last year the WooSox hit 51 in their first 48, in 2024 it was 58 and in 2023 it was 66.
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Worcester is at Scranton-Wilkes-Barre this week and will be dealing with Spencer Jones, back in Triple-A after an unimpressive 10-game stint with the Yankees. The WooSox were 3-2 versus SWB in a series at Polar Park earlier this month. Jones played two games before being called up and was 2 for 9 with a double and a three-run home run. PNC Park has not been hospitable for Worcester through the years. It is 22-32 there.
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This is the way things go when you are in a slump.
Rochester beat the WooSox on Tuesday night, 7-6, and one of the Red Wings runs was a homer by Trey Lipscomb that hit the top of the padded fence in left-center and bounced back into play. It was ruled a home run, although a visit to left-center provided unanimous feedback that the ball did not leave the park, as did the TV replay, which is not official in the minors.
The umpiring crew did meet and talk about the original call, which was upheld. Had they changed it, the play would not have been an automatic ground rule double. The umpires would have determined where they thought Lipscomb would have wound up had the play continued.
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TRIVIA ANSWERS
1. Mickey Gasper has hit 14 homers in a WooSox uniform. While Gasper grew up in New Hampshire and graduated from high school there he was born in Freehold, N.J.
2. Jamie Westbrook hit 12 home runs in a Worcester uniform, the most by anyone born in New England. He was born in Springfield and spent his early years in Holyoke before his family moved to Arizona.
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This is usually not a good thing; Nathan Hickey has set a WooSox record for most pitching appearances by a position player with five. That is both in one season and for a career. With research going back 20 years to 2006, Hickey is the only Boston Triple-A position player with that many mound appearances in one season.
He has worked 4 1/3 innings. In that 20-year span only second baseman Mike Miller of the 2017 PawSox pitched more innings. He was 0-1 with a 12.71 ERA, pitched in four games and worked 5 2/3 innings.
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CATCHING UP WITH….
Former Holy Name star, and later a National League All-Star, Bryan LaHair is still with the Reds organization. After coaching at Triple-A Louisville LaHair is serving as a hitting coach at Cincinnati’s complex facility in Surprise, Az. near where he now lives.
Auburn native Tyler Beede, a first-round draft pick in 2014, is pitching for the Triple-A Iowa Cubs and just came off the development list. He is 0-2 with a 12.27 ERA in nine appearances to date.
Narciso Crook, who hit .216 with 10 home runs for the WooSox in 2023, is with the Charleston (W.Va.) Dirty Birds of the Atlantic League and was batting almost .300 going into the weekend.