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Monday night's gloomy 6-2 loss to the Blue Jays cost the Red Sox much more than a game. On a high first-inning slider from Richard Fitts, outfielder George Springer clipped Wong's glove and fractured his pinky finger. Wong remained in the game to finish the inning but reported swelling and numbness and did not return for the second inning, replaced by Carlos Narváez. After the game, the Red Sox placed Wong on the 15-day injured list with a fractured left pinky finger and called up Blake Sabol from Triple-A Worcester to take his place on the roster. The team has not set a timetable for Wong's return yet, but Baseball Prospectus's recovery dashboard indicates that the average player returns after 42 days, or six weeks, from a break or fracture to the hand.
Catcher interference has been growing more common in recent years because of the increased emphasis on catcher framing. Reaching out and catching the ball earlier allows catchers to present the ball to umpires when it's closest to the strike zone, but it also puts their hands in harm's way. “That’s a tough play,” Fitts told reporters after the game. “He’s trying to steal strikes for me and he’s trying to do whatever he can. So I hope the best for him.” Wong explained the situation using a common refrain from catchers, that framing is less about stealing strikes and more about keeping them strikes. “I feel like on that one, it was more so just saving a strike,” he said. “I set up down and away on a breaking ball and saw it pop up there and wanted to make sure I was able to catch it and stick it. Maybe late reaction, and he caught me.”
Wong put up a breakout offensive campaign in 2024, but the underlying numbers indicated that he was the benefit of some major batted ball luck. Meanwhile, his defensive numbers, specifically his pitch framing grades, took a huge step back. Wong spent much of the offseason working on his framing and bulking up in order to give himself a better chance to withstand the grind of a long season. Over the first week and change of the season, the defensive work appeared to be paying off. Although he was batting just.089, framing numbers from Basball Savant and Baseball Prospectus rated Wong as above average behind the plate, a huge step forward from last season's marks.
In Wong's absence, Narváez appears set to step up as the primary catcher, sharing time with Blake Sabol. The Red Sox acquired Narváez in an offseason trade with the Yankees, The team raved about his defense, and although pitch framing metrics aren't available in the minors, he did appear to be one of the best framers at the Triple-A level over the past two seasons. However, Narváez has a total of just 10 major league games under his belt, four of them coming this year, and he will now be thrust into the primary role for a club with World Series aspirations and expectations. It will be a huge challenge for the 26-year-old rookie. So far this season, his offense has been a pleasant surprise. He's currently 6-for-14 with three doubles and four walks.
The left-handed swinging Sabol also came to via an offseason trade. He came up with the Pirates and spent the last two seasons in the Giants organization. Sabol has 121 games of major league experience. He has run a 95 wRC+ over that time, slightly below the league-average but solid for a catcher. However, his defense has not graded out particularly well. His reputation as a bat-first catcher also had him playing corner outfield occasionally, and he's putting up an above-average offensive line in Worcester so far this season. If he's going to contribute in Boston, it's more likely to be with the bat than with the glove. Behind Sabol, the Red Sox still have Seby Zavala in Worcester. Zavala signed a minor league deal over the winter, and when he didn't make the club out of camp, he had the chance to look for a roster spot elsewhere, but ended up accepting the assignment to Triple-A. Beyond that, it's possible that the Red Sox will look to pad their depth with external candidates like the recently DFA'd Chadwick Tromp, but the team has expressed nothing but faith in Narváez, so at least for now, it appears unlikely that they go out and look for another big league catcher in trade.
With Wong likely to be out for most of the first half, Narváez will have a big say in the team's performance. If he can continue hitting or provide the defensive value that the team has praised over the last few months, he can help keep the Red Sox, who currently sit just half a game behind the Yankees for the division lead, in the hunt. If he should experience growing pains during his first extended stint at the big league level, it could be a real blow to the team's playoff chances.
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