WORCESTER — WooSox first baseman Niko Kavadas is swinging a scorching bat this month, and he turned in a career performance on Friday night.
Kavadas drove in seven of the WooSox’ 11 runs with a 3-for-5 night. He cranked a 428-foot, three-run home run that went 107 mph off the bat in the bottom of the third, seemingly impressing even the man who gave up the hit, Rochester pitcher Luis Reyes.
He sandwiched that blast between a pair of two-RBI singles.
The seven RBIs are both a career high for Kavadas and a club record for the WooSox. It’s the most RBIs in a single game for the Red Sox’ Triple A affiliate since Will Middlebrooks batted in eight on July 3, 2013.
Kavadas came into the game hitting .275 with runners in scoring position and .333 with the bases loaded.
“I just try to hit the ball hard, and with runners in scoring position, nothing changes, you just try to deliver for the boys,” Kavadas told NESN reporter Laura Stickells after the game.
The 25-year-old has proven himself to be one of the most consistent hitters in what is, at times, a pretty stacked Worcester lineup. He put together a .279/.426/.533 slash line in 73 games for the WooSox coming into Friday night, and as the weather’s heated up, so has Kavadas’ bat. He’s 11-for-26 in the month of July, and has boosted himself to fifth in the International League with a .959 OPS.
He’s also shown good plate discipline, walking eight times compared to nine strikeouts in 29 plate appearances in July coming into Friday. Kavadas has struggled with high strikeout rates over his career.
“I needed to increase my contact rate,” Kavadas told MassLive’s Chris Smith in June. “When there is batted ball data, it’s very valuable. I do impact the baseball when contact is made and I needed to make more contact. So that was the priority goal for me in the offseason — was to give myself more opportunities and make more contact in the zone.”
WooSox 11, Red Wings 5
The WooSox bats were as hot as the weather on Friday night, as they put up 11 hits and drew 12 walks on the night. Each of the first four WooSox hitters (Chase Meidroth, Enmanuel Valdez, Nick Yorke and Mickey Gasper) walked twice, as did Eddy Alvarez.
Bobby Dalbec drove in three runs with a pair of singles and Nathan Hickey went 2-for-4 with a double.
Starter Justin Hagenman, who had to move his start up a day with the promotion of Cooper Criswell on Friday afternoon, had trouble with the long ball in his 3 1/3 innings of work, giving up a three-run shot in the first and a solo shot in the second. But the highlight for the WooSox on the pitching side was easily Brian Van Belle’s 4 2/3 innings of work. He was excellent, allowing only two hits and striking out five, getting 10 swings and misses on his changeup.
Luis Guerrero struck out the side in the ninth, bringing the total to 13 for WooSox pitching on the night.
Notes
– Ryan Zeferjahn turned in one of the best relief outings of the season on Wednesday, as he secured a four-out, one-run save and hit triple digits on the radar gun more than once.
Zeferjahn recently spent time on the development list in late June, and since coming off, he’s yet to allow a hit in 2 2/3 innings over two appearances. On Wednesday, 13 of his 16 pitches were strikes.
“I spoke to him after [Wednesday’s game] and told him, ‘now you know that is my expectation for you,’” WooSox manager Chad Tracy said. “Not the results, not ‘I’m gonna get four guys out in 15 pitches.’ But like the level of competitiveness.’ If you’re throwing 101 miles an hour and you’re landing a breaking ball in the zone, you’re going to be really hard to hit. I told him that’s a major league caliber relief appearance, no question about it. So hopefully we’re off to the races here heading in the right direction and we get that that guy more often than not, and we got a pretty damn good one on our hands.”
– To try and give their coaches a little more time off around the All-Star break, the Red Sox gave Tracy the final three nights of the homestand off, leaving bench coach José Flores as the acting manager for Friday, Saturday and Sunday’s games. Flores will get the first three-game series after the break off when the team is playing Lehigh Valley.
– The WooSox social media team asked players to say something nice about a teammate, and the results varied from sweet to silly:
What’s Next
– The WooSox are going to need their bullpen to come up big in the next couple of days as the rotation was shuffled due to Criswell’s promotion. Worcester will start Chase Shugart (4-1, 4.20) in a bullpen game while Brad Lord (1-0, 4.80) takes the hill for Rochester. First pitch is at 4:05 p.m. at Polar Park.
