NEW YORK — Red Sox center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela made the same throwing mistake twice this past week.
And manager Alex Cora has addressed it with him.
Rafaela leads all qualified major league center fielders in defensive runs saved with 10. But he needs to eliminate throwing mistakes.
Both times he threw home instead of to the cutoff man, allowing runners to advance into scoring position.
It first happened in a 4-3 loss to the Angels on Tuesday. Los Angeles’ Zach Neto hit an RBI single up the middle. Rafaela’s throw home sailed all the way to the backstop. That allowed Chris Taylor to advance from second to third base and Neto to move up to second. Both scored on Nolan Schanuel’s two-run single to left field.
It again happened Saturday in Boston’s 10-7 win over the Yankees here at Yankee Stadium. DJ LeMahieu hit a two-run single to cut New York’s deficit to 8-7 in the eighth. Rafaela threw home and LeMahieu — who represented the tying run — moved up into scoring position from first base to second.
“Yeah, we have talked about that,” Cora said. “That’s what we do on a daily basis, right? When we do good things, we talk about it. When we struggle with something or we make bad decisions, we talk about it.”
Cora used Rafaela at second base in the sixth inning Friday after making two pinch-hit substitutions in the top of the inning.
Rafaela played 82 games at shortstop last year. The Red Sox could clear a path for top prospect Roman Anthony, a left fielder, to be called up by moving Rafaela to the infield and shifting Jarren Duran from left field to center field.
Cora was asked if the Red Sox would like to get Rafaela some more time in the infield just as preparation if the defensive alignment needs to change.
“I’m not worried about him playing other positions, to be honest with you,” Cora said. “It’s not that easy. But even in that inning, there was a man at first, and I look at him, I’m like, ‘Oh, this guy, he knows what he needs to do.’ Even the tag was a good one. Obviously repetitions are important and practice is important. But if we have to move him in the middle of the game and play him there, I’m not gonna hesitate. I think we did it more for the way we used the bench that day, and for that inning, he needed to play second base.”
