Kristian Campbell had an early (and sometimes brutal) introduction to the rollercoaster ride that is Major League Baseball.
It’s now time for him to hop off and take a breather.
The Boston Red Sox elected to send the infielder back to Triple-A Worcester on Friday, putting a permanent pause on his rocky experience in the big leagues that included one of the best months any rookie had this season (.301/.407/.495 in March/April) and one of the worst (.134/.184/.171 in May).
How can he turn things around? Red Sox manager Alex Cora gave the organization’s point of view.
“I think it’s a good time for him to reset, to be honest with you,” Cora said, per Sean McAdam of MassLiv e. “Go down there and work on a few things that we have seen the last few weeks, that we’re not doing here. Just to do it in that environment and work on those — not only offensively, but defensively, too. It’s a good time for that.”
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The Red Sox aren’t exactly pulling very much off of his plate in terms of workload, however.
Campbell was seen taking reps at first base during his first day back on the farm, picking back up on an experiment that started and stopped amid the firestorm that was Rafael Devers’ last few weeks in Boston. It’ll remain to be seen if it progresses to a point where the rookie will receive reps there on a consistent basis, but for now, he gets to work in a less pressurized environment.
“He’s not the first one that has been optioned in his career,” Cora noted. “There’s been a lot of good players that made the team out of spring training, they got sent down and then they come back and did their job. We expect him to work as hard as possible; he was doing that here. But I think (detaching) him from the third deck and the lights of the big leagues and go down there and work on a few things that we truly believe is going to make him better.”
Mike Trout, Derek Jeter and Josh Donaldson are a few notable names who fit the description of players who were sent back down after making their debuts.
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Can you expect the kid to reach those heights? No, but that should help take the stress off his shoulders.