I love the idea of giving players more rest and putting them on the DL when they are injured. Certainly a lot of players have had games off so far. But Nunez really seems to be a guy who is playing through injury yet he is in the lineup almost every day. He looks far slower than he did before injuring his knee and seems to be having a lot of trouble moving laterally in the field. Seems to me that he should at least be playing less, and playing less second base especially.
With Bogaerts back, Lin should be playing a lot of second base.
Cora acknowledged that Nunez is not good at second base.
“He’s getting better. At least he’s making the routine play; that’s what we want. He’s catching it clean. He’s turned a few double plays,” manager
Alex Cora said Sunday. “Nunez, he’s an offensive player, we know that.”
Cora acknowledged that the Sox are playing Nunez more than they would like.
“In a perfect world you’re moving him around and he likes that. . . . But as of now he’s playing second base for us,” Cora said. “We understand he’s going to struggle on a few plays. He works at it. He wants us to push him. We’ve been OK with him.”
"Nunez has little range, especially to his left, and has flubbed a few plays even when the shift put him in the right spot... Before he was traded to the Red Sox last July 26,
Eduardo Nunez had started only 16 games at second base over eight seasons in the majors.
He has since started 45 games at that position for the Sox including 20 of the 27 games this season."
Weak use of tiny sample size defensive stats alert: "Nunez has cost the Sox five runs this season based on the Defensive Runs Saved statistic maintained by Baseball Info Solutions. That’s last among second basemen in the majors."
Another odd decision with injured players is the Pomeranz situation. In his first two starts his velocity has been down and he has not looked ready. In his first start, he could barely touch 90 with the fastball.
Who evaluated him in his rehab starts and said he was ready to pitch in the majors and didn't need more rehab? That wasn't on Cora, but the organization seems to have rushed Pomeranz back before he was ready, even though at the time both Velazquez and Johnson were pitching well in their starts.