Shared from the 12/9/2016 The Providence Journal eEdition

RED SOX

Sandoval has to ‘earn’ back his job

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Both the manager and the president of the Red Sox say Pablo Sandoval has to earn back his job at third base. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/TONY GUTIERREZ

OXON Hill, Md. — Nothing will be handed to Pablo Sandoval next season. Dave Dombrowski and John Farrell made that clear.

“He still has to earn the job,” Dombrowski said.

“He’s got to go back out and earn it,” Farrell said.

Still, the way is clear for Sandoval to redeem himself in Boston — the way so many disappointing free agents have done before him. Tuesday’s trades put inordinate pressure on Sandoval to be for the Red Sox what he was for so many years in San Francisco.

Shoulder surgery put Sandoval on the shelf for almost all of last season, his second with a Red Sox team that signed him to a $95-million contract. That missed season came on the heels of a disappointing first season in which he produced career-worst offensive numbers across the board, including a woeful .366 slugging percentage.

Each of the two blockbuster trades Boston made Tuesday, however, saw Dombrowski ship out an infielder who could have pushed Sandoval for playing time at third base. Now in Milwaukee is Travis Shaw, the third baseman who beat out Sandoval in head-to-head competition last spring. Now in Chicago is Yoan Moncada, an elite prospect who got his first exposure to the major leagues in September.

The only alternative to Sandoval remaining on the Red Sox roster is Brock Holt, who supplanted Shaw to start at third base in Boston’s three playoff games last October. Holt has been an indispensable do-it-all contributor to the Red Sox for the last three seasons, even starting in left field for the first six weeks of last season. His best fit is in a reserve role, playing three or four times a week at a variety of positions, rather than as a starter at one position.

The next third baseman in the pipeline is Rafael Devers, a slugger who hit 32 doubles at High-A Salem at the age of 19. He turned 20 about six weeks ago and is slated to spend most, if not all, of the upcoming season at Double-A Portland.

That leaves third base to Sandoval next season and beyond.

That was the original plan, of course. Sandoval signed with the Red Sox after six-plus seasons in San Francisco in which he went to two All-Star Games and won three World Series titles. He was never going to be a lineup-changing slugger — that was Hanley Ramirez, who signed on the same day. But he was supposed to be a capable defender at third base with the bat-to-ball ability to withstand the rising strikeout rates across the game.

What the Red Sox want to see now is that Sandoval to emerge once again. That Sandoval appears to have trimmed his waistline significantly in the months he has spent recovering from shoulder surgery has given them reason for optimism.

“The main thing that Pablo has done is put himself back in tremendous physical condition,” Farrell said. “We’re not asking for Pablo to be anything more than he was prior to signing him, and that is a very good, every-day major-league player. … The challenges that Pablo has gone through, he is extremely motivated to get back to the level that he was previous.”

If Sandoval does redeem himself, he won’t be the first once-disappointing Red Sox player to do so.

John Lackey was a pariah in Boston after one mediocre season, one terrible season and then one season he missed with Tommy John surgery. But his return from surgery in 2013 saw him return to the form he’d shown in his years with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, compiling a 3.52 ERA and pitching into the seventh inning of the deciding game of the World Series.

More recently, Ramirez and Rick Porcello quieted the furor surrounding each of them with redemptive performances in their second seasons in Boston. Porcello won the American League Cy Young Award, and Ramirez hit 30 home runs and slugged.505.

Should Sandoval — or any Sandoval detractor — ever doubt the possibility that a once-reliable big-league performer can right himself after initial stumble, he need only look at those who have come before.

“I would think he sees those living examples in the same room with him,” Farrell said, “that these things are possible, and the opportunity is going to be there to do that.”

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