Marcus Semien made the bigger regular season impact, but the Red Sox liked a few things about Kiké Hernandez better when they signed him in February.
Hernandez was cheaper, of course — having signed with the Sox for two years, $14 million — as opposed to Semien signing with Toronto for one year, $18 million.
The contract gave the Red Sox upside for the future, which has been about the most important thing to chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom since he started making moves with this franchise two years ago.
And Hernandez was playoff-tested, having appeared in the postseason in each of his six full seasons with the Dodgers.
Seven games into the 2021 playoffs, it’s easy to say the Red Sox made the right decision.
Hernandez never turned into the Gold Glove second baseman manager Alex Cora envisioned, but he’s played a phenomenal center field and with another home run in the Sox’ 9-3 win over the Astros in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series, he’s now making postseason history.
In the fourth inning, Hernandez got a splitter down-and-in from Jake Odorizzi and demolished it over everything in left field as he became the first Red Sox player ever to hit five homers in a five-game span in the postseason.
It started in Game 2 of the Division Series against the Rays, when the Sox fell behind 5-2 in the first inning, then turned into the greatest offense on earth, largely behind a five-hit game from Hernandez, who hit a single, three doubles and a home run.
He had three hits, including another homer, in Game 3, and another hit in Game 4.
And he had four hits, including two homers, in the Sox’ Game 1 loss in the ALCS, becoming the first player in MLB history to record at least 12 hits in a four-game span.
He was 2-for-4 with a hit-by-pitch on Saturday and is now 16-for-32 (.500) with four doubles, five homers and nine RBIs this postseason.
“I think it has everything to do with it,” Hernandez said Friday when asked how much his postseason experience was helping him this time around. “There’s nothing that compares to playing in the playoffs until you play in the playoffs. And the fact that I was able to be in the postseason six years when I was with the Dodgers, it was huge. We played some very important games, and with time you kind of get a little bit numb towards the moment or whatever.
“But, yeah, I would say that being able to stay under control during these games has a lot to do with the fact that I played a lot of playoff games before.”
There’s only been three Red Sox players ever to hit five homers in a single postseason: Todd Walker in 2003, David Ortiz in 2004 and 2013, and now Hernandez.
It’s not crazy to say Hernandez is having a Papi-esque type of October.
“I’m having a lot of fun,” he said. “It’s a blast. It’s October, and these games tend to be a lot of fun.”
The wild part is Hernandez was one of the coldest hitters on the team in September, when he came back from a long stint on the COVID-19 injured list and said he had an awful experience battling the illness.
“Baseball’s not that easy, I don’t expect to go out there and do what I was doing right before I got sick or whatever,” he said when he returned to the lineup on Sept. 7. “But at the same time, I say that now, as soon as the lights turn on at 7 o’clock I’m expecting to do that.”
His next nine games, he was just 4-for-36 (.111) with nine strikeouts. But he finished the season hitting .283 with three homers in his final 13 games and has taken the momentum right into the playoffs.
It’s exactly what Cora envisioned in spring training.
“As a hitter, I still believe there’s something more there,” Cora said in February. “We’ve been talking a little bit the last few weeks. About how I’m gonna use him, what I expect, and challenge him to do certain things and we’ll do that in spring training. And I do believe that you know what we do on April 1, he’s gonna dictate that. I believe he can hunt fastballs. And he can hit them for extra base hits.”
Semien will finish top-5 in MVP voting this year after playing in all 162 games and hitting 45 homers while scoring 115 runs and driving in 102.
Hernandez set a career-high with 585 plate appearances and 35 doubles this year, adding 20 homers and a .337 on-base percentage as the team’s leadoff hitter most of the season.
Semien had the better season, but Hernandez is dominating in October. And he’s still under contract for just another $7 million next year.
Safe to say, this contract was a winner.
