BOSTON — Yeah, that Green Monster was good.
“Oh, (expletive),” Xander Bogaerts mentioned this week, smiling extensive as he recalled what he beloved about Fenway Park. “I mean, the left field helps, you know. I can tell you that. I’ve had a couple balls here that would have been a couple more doubles.”
At least a dozen extra, truly. And that’s with out truly making an attempt to hit a ball excessive and deep to left subject when he’s in his dwelling park now. Because he is aware of what occurs to lengthy fly balls within the heavy air on the San Diego Bay.
“It just dies here,” Bogaerts mentioned.
He flashes again from time to time to what occurs west of Back Bay, within the previous ballpark with the 37-foot-high inexperienced wall that runs from the left subject foul pole, 310 ft from dwelling plate, to the middle subject flag pole.
One such reminder got here Saturday, when Nick Castellanos hit a fly ball that traveled 68 ft excessive earlier than touchdown roughly 364 ft from dwelling plate within the glove of Tigers left fielder Riley Greene in entrance of the wall at Petco Park.
“That would have been on Lansdowne,” Boagerts mentioned of the road that runs parallel to the Green Monster and hardly 50 ft past it.
Bogaerts returns to Fenway Park this weekend for the second time with his new staff to play the Red Sox, the staff that signed him when he was 16 and with which he performed a decade within the main leagues and received two World Series rings.
It would be the first time he has an opportunity to hit a ball off (or over) the Green Monster in a distinct uniform. He was on the injured listing with a fractured shoulder when the Padres visited Fenway Park in June 2024.
Before the primary sport of that collection, a tribute performed on the video board and Bogaerts obtained a heat and sustained standing ovation.
“That was pretty sweet,” Bogaerts recalled. “It was a nice time to soak it all in, because I wasn’t playing. I was hurt, and you wouldn’t want to get too distracted while playing.”
Xander Bogaerts standing ovation and video tribute In his return to Fenway #padres pic.twitter.com/BSpwDVNJ0x
— Allison Edmonds (@aedmondstv) June 28, 2024
Rafael Devers, now with the San Francisco Giants and then with the Red Sox, as he was for six seasons alongside Bogaerts on the left facet of the infield, recalled that second in ‘24.
“I see that, and I feel like he needed that,” Devers mentioned this week.
It was good, Devers mentioned, for Bogaerts to recollect.
“Xander Bogaerts was very historic for that organization,” Devers mentioned.
No one has performed extra video games at shortstop in a Red Sox uniform than the 1,094 Bogaerts did from 2013 by ‘22.
He debuted at 20 years previous on Aug. 20, 2013, and ended up hitting .296 within the postseason and beginning all six video games of the World Series, which the Red Sox received over one other legacy franchise, the St. Louis Cardinals.
Five years later, he turned certainly one of eight gamers to have been a part of no less than two of Boston’s 4 World Series titles this century.
Before signing an 11-year, $280 million contract with the Padres in December 2022, Bogaerts was an All-Star 5 instances, received 4 Silver Slugger Awards and hit .292 with an .814 OPS and 156 homers and 308 doubles.
From 2015 by ‘22, Bogaerts ranked eleventh within the main leagues in WAR (33.9), eighth in batting common (.299), sixteenth in extra-base hits (435) and fifth in video games began within the subject (1,075).
That will not be the participant the Padres have gotten.
Bogaerts has dealt with freak accidents every of his three seasons with the Padres, and these maladies have served as markers dividing his on-field performance into practically equal parts good and bad.
He has been one of many Padres’ prime offensive performers for parts of all three seasons with the staff and an absolute albatross within the lineup for parts of all three seasons.
He nonetheless seeks a full marketing campaign with the Padres nearly as good as any of the seven he turned in over the eight-year interval between 2015 and ‘22.
He has performed simply 408 of the Padres’ 492 video games for the reason that begin of 2023 and is batting .270 with a .733 OPS in brown and gold.
He has been in San Diego just a little greater than a 3rd so long as he was in Boston. But it looks like an extended time.
“I was thinking about that the other day,” Bogaerts mentioned on Tuesday. “Not the same amount of time, right? But maybe dealing with all my headaches, it feels like a lot longer — just the ups and downs, having the good and the bad.”
Just how lately Bogaerts arrived is revealed in his utter amazement that Petco Park was not at all times full.
In his thoughts, there’s one nice similarity between taking part in for the Red Sox and Padres:
Expectations.
For reference, a kind of two groups performed its first sport in its dwelling ballpark 5 days after the Titanic sank and has received 9 World Series titles, together with 4 of the previous 22. The different staff started taking part in in 1969 and has but to win a championship.
Anyone who adopted the Padres earlier than the present decade remembers dozens of years between playoff appearances and crowds of 14,224 on a Tuesday.
“No sellout crowds?” Bogaerts mentioned incredulously when regaled with a short historical past of San Diego as a sports activities city, the Padres’ struggles on the sphere and within the shadow of the Chargers.
But Bogaerts started noticing the Padres in 2020, when he would catch their video games on tv after his ended on the East Coast, and he was intrigued by the “Slam Diego” vibe and a younger shortstop who performed like his dreadlocks had been on hearth. That 12 months ended with the primary of what has turn into 4 postseason appearances in six years, an unprecedented run in Padres historical past.
Bogaerts arrived in San Diego shortly after the Padres’ run to the 2022 NLCS. His first Padres staff included Juan Soto, Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. Of the 246 video games at Petco Park since Bogaerts joined the staff, 193 have drawn no less than 40,000 followers and none has had an introduced attendance of decrease than 29,581.
So, to him, the present model of the Padres and the followers that love them are all there have ever been.
And his take on the teams that observe the 2 groups may be stunning to these steeped in previous tropes concerning the laid-back San Diego fan.
“I just think (San Diego) is just — the one thing that I like, and it can be a little frustrating, because I’ve been fortunate enough to play on two teams where we won,” he mentioned. “Coming right here, that is all that they need. I say ‘they’ as a result of I wasn’t right here earlier than. Coming right here, you discover instantly — I don’t know if each little factor will get just a little overblown, possibly. But why? It’s as a result of they simply need it so dangerous.
“In Boston, it’s like they’re simply used to playoffs all of the time. … You’ve received 4 instances — 2004, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18. And here, they have never won. So you can see how much they want it. It’s simply plenty of frustration for the followers. It’s completely different. Boston followers are extra intense. But they nonetheless perceive. I’m not bashing both fan base. It’s only a distinction. And why is there a distinction? Because in Boston, they’ve received, and right here they’ve by no means received.
“You can feel here more like — desperate is a hard word to say — but just like a lot of years of frustration coming out. They want it bad. In Boston, they might want it, yeah. But here they want it bad, because they never had it.”
Bogaerts believes his legacy is tied up within the expectations.
He is aware of he has upset. He is meant to be a part of the attraction of the Padres, whose enterprise technique revolves round not solely a ravishing ballpark and successful however in having big-name, thrilling gamers. He has heard the boos and seen the criticism.
“It’s something to come to see,” Bogaerts mentioned of the Padres’ star energy. “And that’s why, when you don’t perform, that’s what you get.”
During spring coaching, nearly as a throwaway line whereas speaking about Bogaerts’ place within the lineup, Padres supervisor Craig Stammen mentioned: “Xander is on track to be in the Hall of Fame.”
Where he laid a base for that in Boston, Bogaerts would want to complete his profession like few gamers of their mid- and late 30s do in an effort to make it to Cooperstown.
He barely entertained the thought when Stammen’s remark was dropped at his consideration. Asked what he thought it will take, he shrugged and rapidly rattled off some numbers.
And then he mentioned: “And a championship here.”
