If you called Ceddanne Rafaela the best defensive centerfielder in baseball, you wouldn’t get much argument.
Among qualified centerfielders, only Pete Crow-Armstrong has more outs above average than his Boston Red Sox counterpart. Crow-Armstrong also has an additional 50 innings in the outfield because Rafaela has filled in at second base with Marcelo Mayer out due to injury.
Despite making seemingly impossible catches on a regular basis, Rafaela isn’t satisfied.
“If the ball isn’t out of the stadium, I have to catch it,” Rafaela said during an in-game interview on Sunday.
In the first inning, Rafaela nearly chased down a fly ball in the gap, but the ball was just out of his reach and went for a double. It was almost an incredible catch, but by the outfielder’s standards, it was a missed opportunity.
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Rafaela went 3-3 with an RBI and a hit by pitch in Sunday’s 6-1 win over the Houston Astros. The Red Sox are 11 games over .500 for the first time since 2022. They passed the New York Yankees in the standings on Saturday, but Rafaela has his sights set higher.
“Just keep playing the baseball we’ve been playing. I think our mindset is not only on the Yankees, it’s just playing good baseball and trying to win the division,” Rafaela said.
The Red Sox are three games behind the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East.
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