Alex Bregman Admits This Change Led To Strong Red Sox Spring Training Debut
Boston Red Sox infielder Alex Bregman said his first spring training game every season always makes him a “little jittery.”
It didn’t look that way Sunday with Bregman donning a Red Sox uniform for the first time in a game setting.
Bregman went 3-for-3 in his spring training debut with the Red Sox as he smacked a two-run home run to go along with a single and a double in his outing against the Toronto Blue Jays.
Bregman, who signed a three-year, $120 million deal with two player opt-outs less than two weeks ago, credited a mechanical tweak to his swing for helping him make a very strong first impression.
“We’ve been working hard on some mechanical things that I was doing early in my career that I kind of stopped doing the last few years,” Bregman told reporters, per MassLive’s Christopher Smith.
Bregman added: “I was a little more turned in and my hands were launching from a lot further back over the last few years. So we tried to kind of keep them inside my frame today and it felt good to square a few balls up.”
Bregman joined the Red Sox after coming off an average offensive season with the Houston Astros in which he batted .260 with 26 home runs and 76 RBIs.
But all signs point to the right-handed hitter’s swing being tailor-made for Fenway Park — his historic 1.240 OPS at the ballpark is a big piece of evidence for that — and it looked that way Sunday. With JetBlue Park serving as a replica to Fenway, Bregman took advantage of the massive wall in left field. He blasted a second-inning home run over the Green Monster and rung a double off the wall a couple innings later to bring in a run. He also singled to right in his first at-bat.
Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said during Bregman’s introductory press conference last week that the veteran infielder has an “offensive profile that fits our park almost perfectly.”
And that might be even more true now with Bregman’s tweaked swing.