Baseball is so crazy! At the start of the season, Sox fans were hoping a trio of rookies could inject some life into the lethargic lineup. Specifically, Kristian Campbell, Marcelo Mayer and Roman Anthony. Well, so far they’re 1-3 in that department with Campbell back down in Worcester (where he’s slowly recovering), Mayer done for the year with wrist surgery, and Anthony becoming an integral part of the everyday lineup.
However, we still might end up with a scenario where three rookies end up making
a huge impact on the lineup before the season ends. One has already done so in Carlos Narvaez (can you imagine how screwed the Sox would have been at the catcher position this year if he didn’t step up?), but another is emerging down in Worcester.
Jhostynxon Garcia (or The Password, as he’s becoming known in most circles), he been a delight to track this season. He started the year as an easy to overlook outfield bat (did the Red Sox really need another one of those?). Then he became possible trade bait before the front office fiasco at the deadline, and now he’s quietly becoming an option that might make an impact down the stretch.
He’s currently batting .308 with a .372 OBP and a .945 OPS as a 22-year-old down in Worcester, and he’s been particularly hot during the month of August so far, posting a 1.114 OPS. However, when looking under the hood, they’re might be something to get even more excited about.
Here’s his OPS against righties each of the last two seasons (spanning multiple minor league levels):
2024: .852
2025: .865
Pretty solid, right?
Here’s what it looks like against lefties:
2024: .1.186
2025: 1.028
Whoa! I think Rob Refsnyder and Romy Gonzalez might have a new friend.
Digging even deeper, the numbers only get more interesting. Against righties, Garcia has 784 plate appearances over this time period. Against lefties? it’s just 104. That’s almost an eight to one ratio.
See, a weird thing happens in the upper minors with left handed pitchers. They’re rocketed through the system because everybody needs an extra hard throwing southpaw in their bullpen to get the platoon advantage when a left handed hitter comes up in a big spot late in the game.
The result is guys typically just don’t face as many left-handed pitchers in the last year or two before they crack the majors, and this can play out in a couple different ways. For somebody like Marcelo Mayer, it made his development more difficult because he had to learn how to face major league lefties on the fly in limited plate appearances. It’s something he’ll continue to battle when he comes back next year.
But on the flip side, this phenomenon can also underrate lefty killers because their overall numbers are an under-representative split of what they will face in the major leagues. This is why Romy Gonzalez, for instance, has a .786 OPS in a 156 career games with the Red Sox after posting an .804 career OPS in the minor leagues.
So at this point, with the bottom 20 percent of the Red Sox roster being its biggest anchor and largest obstacle to overcome down the stretch, at what point do we start wondering which players Garcia could displace in the lineup? Assuming Abraham Toro is gone soon with the addition of Nathaniel Lowe and Rob Refsnyder’s (hopefully) short stint on the IL, the next guy on the hot seat would logically be Masataka Yoshida. If he doesn’t start hitting by the end of the month (so, this road trip), the Red Sox have to start using his DH at-bats for their excess outfielders.
The Yoshida logjam has already created a problem that’s pushed Ceddanne Rafaela off his perch as the best defensive centerfielder in the league, and there’s really no way around the fact that Yoshida’s presence in the lineup has done more harm than good. If we get to a point in September where Sox have Roman Anthony, Wilyer Abreu, Ceddanne Rafaela, Jarren Duran, Rob Refsnyder and now Jhostynxon Garcia all fighting for outfield at-bats, Yoshida has to get displaced. (The fact that they started Garcia for a game at first base the other day reveals a lot about how big of a logjam this is becoming.)
But let’s imagine a world that involves those six outfielders fitting into four spots (three in the outfield and the DH). Anthony should play everyday because he’s awesome, and Rafaela should be in centerfield everyday because he’s the best in the American league at that position, but beyond that things get mighty interesting.
Taking the opposite perspective, which of those six guys least deserves to be in the lineup a left-handed starting pitcher? Without a doubt, the answer is Jarren Duran. He’s batting just .207 with a .587 OPS against lefties this season, and his career numbers aren’t much better at a .232 batting average and .617 OPS. So when Garcia comes up, I think they Sox are going to need to have a conversation with Duran about his playing time when the face a left-handed starter. He simply shouldn’t be in there on those days.
Oh, and here’s where it’s going to get even more awkward. If the Red Sox end up in the Wild Card round, there’s a decent chance they face either the Yankees or the Astros, both of which would be throwing at least one, and possibly two left handed starters in that quick best of three series. In other words, the lineups the Red Sox use against Max Fried and Carlos Rodon this weekend in New York might not be the lineups they use against those guys if they face them in October.
If it all goes right, Garcia could become the third rookie making a huge impact on the Red Sox season down the stretch, and the third guy who just demolishes lefties in a lineup in some of the most crucial games of the year. If the front office does their job, seats on this roster are about to get hot as the weather cools off.
