Before the Red Sox (55-36) dropped their first half finale 5-4 this afternoon at Fenway Park vs. the Phillies (44-44), the team broke the great news that they had re-signed their free-agent-to-be All-Star closer Matt Barnes to a two-year extension worth $18.75 million with a club option for the 2024 season. At age 31, the Bethel, CT native and UConn alum is having a career year: he's 4-2 with 19 saves, a 2.61 ERA, 0.89 WHIP and 63 strikeouts in 38 innings of work. This type of financial commitment by Boston's GM Chaim Bloom shows that he must believe that Barnes' 2021 season (thus far) is no fluke. Rather, it's the turning point of a reliever who was at times very good earlier in his career but never really great before this campaign. He has become one of Boston's best players and one of their biggest keys in the second half if they hope to reach the playoffs and progress far in October.
Fittingly on the first night of the 2021 MLB Draft, we can't forget that Barnes was a first-round pick (19th overall) by the Sox in 2011. He progressed through their farm system relatively fast and made his MLB debut in 2014. That means that he has only ever played for the Red Sox and also, he's currently their longest-tenured player for what that's worth. Up until this year, Barnes was best known as the maddingly inconsistent righty with good stuff that could never completely put it all together for long stretches of time. Thankfully for his sake and the team's (who is tied with Houston for the best record in the American League at the All-Star break), it has been a totally different story this season as he was named the closer in Spring Training and he has never really looked back since then. Nothing is guaranteed in pro sports, especially in the world of closers but Matt is tied for the second-most saves in the AL for a reason.
Barnes has made such a huge leap this year (thanks Alex Cora?) that it is difficult to logically explain how he has seemingly morphed into one of the most dominant closers in baseball overnight and a first-time All-Star in his early 30s. I suppose that he always had this ability within himself but perhaps it's just taken this long to unlock it. Whatever the case may be, he headed out to Denver tonight with four of his teammates (Xavier Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, J.D. Martinez and Nathan Eovaldi) for the 2021 MLB All-Star Game at Coors Field on Tuesday night (7:30, Fox). It is crazy how fast he has become almost automatic in terms of consistently high performance levels and likewise in the hearts and minds of critical Sox fans. It seems like every time that he comes in a game these days, I am extremely confident that he will get the job done and probably without breaking much of a sweat in the process. He has always thrown hard (in the upper 90s) but his curveball and off-speed pitches have reached another level not to mention that he is locating everything so well all around the strike zone.
No comments:
Post a Comment