During a recent spring training game, the Boston Red Sox used a unique shift alignment against Joey Gallo of the Minnesota Twins.
The Red Sox positioned centre fielder Adam Duvall in shallow right field and moved Raimel Tapia from left to centre, keeping their right fielder in his traditional spot, with two infielders on each side of second base.
This allowed them to remain compliant with MLB’s new shift rules while still testing out their new approach.
However, the counter to this approach is that if Gallo hit the ball the other way, the Red Sox wouldn’t have an outfielder to cover the left-field corner, as the closest player would be Tapia in centre field. MLB’s shift change was intended to be a boost for lefties who pull the ball, but if teams start implementing Boston’s strategy and it works, that could change.
Gallo, who signed a one-year, $11 million deal with the Twins this offseason after struggling with the Yankees and Dodgers in 2022, needs to learn how to not pull the ball so much.
The former first-round pick finished with the lowest batting average of his career in 2022 at .160, and his home run numbers dropped from 38 to 19.
In an interview with The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, Gallo expressed his frustrations, saying that every baseball player at some point questions whether they want to continue playing.
Despite being a coveted bat when the Yankees acquired him in 2021, Gallo was traded to the Dodgers a year later for pitching prospect Clayton Beeter. However, Gallo only hit slightly better with a .162 average and .671 OPS in his final 44 regular-season games and one postseason game.
»Boston Red Sox uses unique shift alignment against Joey Gallo«
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