International Red Sox:Volume #15

It’s been a wild two weeks for the Red Sox, as they cooled off a bit, but then started to get hot again, right as they welcomed Rafael Devers home and were saved multiple times by the good baseball of Nick Sogard. Internationally, Bryan Mata has been promoted, Yu Chang keeps doing his thing, and Bobby Dalbec has hit some milestones. (Author’s Note: Statistics are current as of 8/24/26)

Since last issue, Chang has continued to rake. To illustrate, he was on a four-game hitting streak in the last issue, and only yesterday did that streak end, at 10 games. On the 12th, he went 1-4 against the Brothers, whom he’d demolish the next day, going 4-5 with a home run, a double, an RBI, and two runs. He then had a quieter day on the 14th, where he got a hit, stole a base, and picked up an RBI, making it his second straight game with an RBI. The 15th was a similar story, where Chang went 1-4 with another RBI. Against the U-Lions on the 16th, Chang again went 1-5, but had a 3-run homer, which was the second of this big streak. He would get another hit and RBI on the 18th, but he saw the hit streak end on the 23rd, when he did keep the RBI streak alive, getting a sac fly.

Chang is now batting .308, with 14 home runs, which is tied for his career best. Besides his minor injuries, Chang has been utterly dominant at the dish and could see his way back on an MLB team in the future if he wants to come back.

Bobby Dalbec has come back to Earth after a monstrous run, but he did knock out some pretty neat milestones while he cooled off. On the 11th, Dalbec scored Yomiuri’s only run with a solo homer, for his 19th big fly of the year. The next day, Dalbec got his first big milestone of the issue, hitting his 20th homer this season, by way of another solo homer. Dalbec’s strikeout problem would surface again, as he would go 0-4 with two strikeouts on the 13th, and then 1-4 with three strikeouts on the 14th. The weekend was hardly better, as he went 1-8 with an RBI and 4 strikeouts.

That rough stretch would continue into this past week, as Dalbec got a golden sombrero on Tuesday, and then followed that up with a 0-4 day on Wednesday. However, Dalbec got another big achievement on Thursday by reaching the 100-hit mark on the season, in a 1-4 effort. Another 1-4 game would come through on Friday, this time with an RBI. He then rounded off the week with another hit.

While Dalbec’s monster run is over, he’s still been a great power hitter and replacement for Kazuma Okamoto, batting .256 with 20 homers and 65 RBI. Like Chang, Dalbec could find himself back in MLB sooner than later.

If you take a look at the header for this section, you’ll notice that the “MINORS” tag has been removed from Bryan Mata, and that is because he is back with the big club. However, before that happened, Mata did make one last start on the farm, and he excelled, going 5 innings, only allowing three hits, and striking out 7. That left his farm league stats at 3 wins, a loss, a save, 71 innings, 62 punchouts, 23 walks, a 2.66 ERA, and a 1.21 WHIP.

Mata was then added back to the big league squad and made his return start on the 20th, where he got his first NPB win. He did it against the DeNA Baystars, throwing 5 innings, giving up 5 hits, 2 walks, a hit batter, and allowing 3 earned runs, and striking out 7.

While not a standout performance, it should be solid enough for him to stick on the roster. In his 5 games with the Giants this year, he’s 1-1 with a 3.33 ERA and a 1.36 WHIP.

Darwinzon Hernandez’s games were few and far between, but mostly clean work. Hernandez dominated on the 12th, getting the 8th inning, not allowing any traffic, while striking out two. Then, on the 14th, he gave up a hit, but that was his only runner, as he struck out 1 in a scoreless frame. The 18th was a similar story, as he walked a runner, but still kept it scoreless. However, he was tossed into action the next day, and it didn’t go to plan, as he allowed two hits and an earned run over 0.1 innings, en route to his second loss of the year.

With the earned run, Hernandez’s ERA goes up to a 1.71, which is right in line with his NPB career. Interestingly enough, his WHIP only went up 1 point from last issue, to a 1.17.

Tzu-Wei Lin started off well two weeks ago, with two consecutive 1-3 days, but it was a rough going since that. He followed up that good start by going 0-6 in his next two games, and then had a good game, going 2-4 with two RBI’s, but fell back into his previous ways, going 0-4 on the 18th, which was his most recent game.

Lin’s numbers keep dropping, as now he’s slashing .246/.286/.330 over 75 games this season.