Red Sox' Shane Victorino rights himself at plate, drives in seven

Shane Victorino mashed two homers, including the 100th of his career, en route to a personal best seven RBIs in a 13-2 win against the Orioles on Tuesday.

Joe Lemire | Aug 27, 2013

Red Sox' Shane Victorino rights himself at plate, drives in seven /

Shane Victorino mashed two homers, including the 100th of his career, en route to a personal best seven RBIs in a 13-2 win against the Orioles on Tuesday. (Elise Amendola/AP)

Shane Victorino homered, homered again and doubled in successive at bats to drive in seven runs in Boston’s 13-2 rout of AL East rival Baltimore for an extra game’s cushion atop the division standings. Victorino’s three extra-base hits -- two lasers over the Green Monster and the exact opposite, a bloop double to shallow right -- followed a walk and were sandwiched around a hit by pitch, as the rightfielder reached base five times and had the most RBIs by any Red Sox at Fenway Park since Nomar Garciaparra drove in eight back on July 23, 2002. They were home runs 100 and 101 of the Flyin' Hawaiian's career.

Victorino’s hits came against three different Orioles lefthanders (starter Wei-Yin Chen and relievers Troy Patton and Brian Matusz), though what has matted most over the past month hasn’t been the handedness of the pitcher but the location of the batter’s box where Victorino has dug his cleats.

The former switch-hitter has temporarily become an exclusively righthanded bat, because of a left leg injury that he’s playing through, and so far he’s excelled in all situations when batting from the right. It helps that Victorino was solely a righty hitter until learning to switch hit as a 22-year-old in Double A, but learning to pick up the break and tail of pitches -- from big league pitchers -- in right-on-right situations for the first time in a decade still ought to be a challenge.

Instead, he’s had near-equal success in right-on-right plate appearances (a .293 average and .884 OPS), albeit in a small 48-PA sample, than in right-on-left situations (.315 with a .880 OPS). Both are much better than his lefthanded production when he has a switch-hitter’s platoon advantage -- in those chances, he’s batting just .277 with a .713 OPS.

likely free-agent flop

Published Aug 27, 2013

JOE LEMIRE

Staff Writer, Sports Illustrated Staff writer Joe Lemire is in his seventh year at Sports Illustrated and his fourth season covering baseball full time. Lemire writes features and analysis for SI and SI.com and is responsible for the website's weekly MLB Power Rankings. He has profiled Pirates star Andrew McCutchen and Braves rookie sensation Evan Gattis for the magazine. Lemire's penchant for covering America's pastime is to be expected considering his inspirations, Tom Verducci and Peter Gammons, are among the most well-known writers in the sport. Before his current role, Lemire spent his first three years with SI oscillating between baseball, college basketball, high school football and sports business. This came on the heels of a summer internship with the magazine in 2004 and a tenure as a stringer with SI: On Campus. Born in Richmond, Va., and raised in Lowell, Mass., Lemire graduated from the University of Virginia in 2005 with a B.A. in government and a minor in economics. Before joining SI he covered high school and college sports for the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg, Va. He earned two Virginia Press Association awards for his work, one while a student writing at University of Virginia's Cavalier Daily and one at the Daily News-Record.