The eighth inning of Wednesday's victory over the A's was hardly worth watching. The Red Sox had just taken a 7-1 lead on Christian Vazquez's leadoff homer when Andrew Benintendi stepped in against Ryan Dull with one out and Jackie Bradley on first.
Benintendi worked the count in his favor and then launched a 3-1 fastball to left-center. When Benintendi is going well, his inside-out stroke reminds fans of a certain age of another left-handed Red Sox hitting outfielder, and this ball had Fred Lynn written all over it.
Unfortunately, Benintendi didn't get quite all of it and center fielder Ramon Laureano chased it down in front of the wall. The deep lineout went in the scorebook as an F-8, but felt like more. As he left Fenway Park that night for a flight to Chicago, Benintendi was asked if that swing, to that part of the park, could be the start of something.
"That's the hope," he said softly.
One night later, Benintendi felt a lot better about himself. He went 2 for 4 with a home run and a walk in a 6-4 walkoff loss to the White Sox that stung because the Red Sox let one slip away, but may end up serving as a catalyst if it gets their leadoff hitter going.
It was a weird game for the Red Sox offense, with the top three of Benintendi, Mookie Betts, and J.D. Martinez combining to go 8 for 13, and the rest of the lineup taking an 0 for 20.
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The key cog was Benintendi, who's one of the pillars of the lineup despite yo-yoing between slumping and effective all season. He opened in a 4-for-25 slump, raised his average to .306 in late April, and then finished the most recent homestand in a 2-for-21 skid that had manager Alex Cora wondering if he was trying to do too much.
"With him it seems like he expands, especially when there's nobody on," Cora said on Wednesday. "He's been expanding the zone, too. Down in the zone, up and away. You see it in his swing. Besides that, when there's men on, it's the other way around. He doesn't expand. We talked a little bit about it yesterday. He knows when there's nobody on, he's probably trying to hit the ball in the air and hit it out of the ballpark, maybe. I haven't asked him. We love the hitter. We like the hitter. He goes to left-center. He goes the other way and that is what we need him to get back to. I think he's getting close."
Thursday reinforced that notion. Benintendi led off the third with an opposite-field homer to left. He then pulled a single to right before walking and scoring the go-ahead run in the seventh.
With Martinez hitting from the start and Betts finding his groove two weeks ago, it's fair to wonder if it's Benintendi's turn.
The Red Sox have awaited the re-emergence of the relentless offense that defined their march to 108 wins in 2018. It has been slow in materializing, partly because second base and center field have been black holes, but also because Benintendi hasn't consistently produced from the leadoff spot.
Maybe that's about to change, and maybe he has an otherwise nondescript F-8 to thank.
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