Ceddanne

Rafaela

Rafaela is back in center field and hitting second after being scratched from Sunday’s contest with lower back soreness. He winds up just missing one game due to the minor ailment.

He sustained the injury while attempting to make a diving catch in the outfield. It’s not believed to be a major issue, but Red Sox’ skipper Chad Tracy wanted to utilize Monday’s off day to get him off his feet for a couple of days. Expect him to return to action on Tuesday.

No word yet on the reason for the late scratch, but Connor Wong will enter the lineup as the designated hitter to replace Rafaela. Expect the Red Sox to provide an update on his status shortly.

Rafaela tallied three singles in his first three at-bats on the night and drove in two runners in the fourth inning to put the Red Sox up 4-0. Rafaela has swung a hot bat as of late, hitting safely in four-straight games while slashing .310/.370/.512 on the month and swiping four bags. He remains a key bat for a Red Sox lineup that has scored five or more runs in four of its last five games.

Rafaela gets the nod in a prominent spot in Boston’s lineup after hitting .320 (16-for-50) with three homers and three steals over his last 15 games. The 25-year-old center fielder sat out Monday’s series opener but he’s back in there to face Royals lefty Bailey Falter on Tuesday night.

The 25-year-old is up to a 111 wRC+ this year, though he’s ridden a .340 BABIP to get there. He now has four home runs and two stolen bases while continuing to play nearly every day in center field. The Red Sox have one more game in their series against the Phillies before embarking on a road trip to Atlanta and Kansas City.

Rafaela gave the Red Sox a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning when he took a first-pitch slider from Jesse Scholtens to left field for his third homer of the season. Rafaela has now hit safely in four of his last five games and is slashing .321/.387/.536 in his last seven games with two homers and six RBI.

There has been some steady progress in the underlying metrics for Rafaela this season. He’s chasing less outside of the zone and making more contact, but the impactful swings have not been there, so it was nice to see this game from him today. He took Framber Valdez deep in the first inning for his second home run of the year and then added an RBI single in the third inning as well. He’s getting caught stealing too much to begin the season, but new Red Sox manager Chad Tracy has been hitting Rafaela near the middle of the lineup, so that should be a real boon to his counting stats. He remains a hold in all fantasy formats.

Rafaela’s triple came in the sixth inning, hit to the right-center gap and scoring Wilyer Abreu to give Boston a 4-1 lead. The 25-year-old is hitting for a career-best wRC+, but he’s 0-for-3 on stolen base attempts with just one homer so far.

Rafaela has started 11 of the last 12 games for the Red Sox, so this is a routine day off. Boston didn’t do anything in the off-season to solve their outfield logjam, and now they also have Masataka Yoshida hitting .300/.462/.400 in his first 39 plate appearances, which makes it hard for Alex Cora to get everybody into the lineup. Yoshida will DH on Monday with Jarren Duran in centerfield. Rafaela is having a solid start to the season, hitting .279/.362/.377 with one home run and a 39 percent hard-hit rate, but he’s hitting the ball in the air less and hasn’t yet stolen a base, so the fantasy goodness has not followed so far.