Bill Ballou: Mid-Year Awards

No sport needs an All-Star break more than baseball.

It is not the physical halfway point of the regular season but serves as the mental one. By this time of the year, everybody’s mind needs some time off.

Triple-A ball is observing the same break as the major leagues, and it provides a chance to reflect on what has happened in Worcester’s first minor league season resembling normal. So, some mid-year awards with the final versions to come at the end of 2022.

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER

Considering how many good players the WooSox have sent up to Boston, this is a tough one. For a dividing line, we’ll do half of the games played here — 45 — for someone to be eligible. Both Jarren Duran and Rob Refsnyder just miss out, but there are still several WooSox who have had worthy seasons to date.

Ryan Fitzgerald gets the nod.

Baseball is a game of averages but also a game of volume. Fitzgerald has slumped recently and all of his averages are down, but his durability and versatility count for a lot. Runs Produced is an old-fashioned number that has been superseded by OPS, but measures volume. It is RBIs plus runs scored minus homers. Fitzerald leads the WooSox with 79 runs produced so far, just shy of one a game.

Nobody else is within 10 of that figure.

MOST VALUABLE PITCHER

There has been so much movement between Boston and Worcester that is hard to determine a qualifying number. In this case, let’s make it 25 appearances, which only five WooSox pitchers have done.

Kaleb Ort has been the most valuable one.

Terry Francona — a pretty good reference — believes that managers are judged by how they handle their bullpens. It is a bit different in the minors, but closers like Ort tend to make managers look smart. He has 15 saves, a nice round number, but more importantly, the WooSox are 24-9 in his 33 appearances.

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

For this one, we’ll limit it to players who came into 2022 with fewer than 20 Triple-A games to their credit. That still leaves a good pool, the best of whom is Ronaldo Hernandez, who has both caught and served as a DH. He played seven games for the WooSox late last season and had a dreadful start to 2022, but is batting a productive .319 since April 28.

TENTH PLAYER

It is hard to imagine that a one-time major league Gold Glove winner could be unsung, but Yolmer Sanchez has been an important under-the-radar contributor. His on-base percentage is the best of anyone currently with Worcester, his quiet team leadership is a great intangible and he is a great fielder.

TRIPLE-A TRIVIA

1. Who is the only manager to manage a Red Sox Triple-A affiliate and later manage a World Series winner in the major leagues?

2. What Red Sox outfielder is the last Boston Triple A player to lead his team in home runs with fewer than 10?

Answers below.

The WooSox opened the 2022 season with 6-5 victory in Jacksonville and used 14 different players in the game. Only one of those players, Christin Stewart, played Sunday in Worcester’s last game before the break at Norfolk. Of those 14 in Jacksonville, seven were on the Boston roster Sunday — Jarren Duran, Jeter Downs, Rob Refsnyder, Franchy Cordero, Connor Wong, Darwinzon Hernandez and Kaleb Ort.

The Mason-Dixon Line remains the great divider between north and south and the WooSox are fond of the southern side of things. They are 13-5 versus Jacksonville, Charlotte and Norfolk combined. … Worth noting as Major League Baseball looks at pace of game initiatives — the Red Sox and Yankees played 28 innings of ball in 10 hours, 41 minutes last weekend. The WooSox and Norfolk played 26 innings in 7 hours, 55 minutes. … It looked like a lot of Worcester batters were happy to see the break arrive but Grant Williams, Devlin Granberg and Pedro Castellanos were not among them. Granberg took a 7-game hit streak (9 for 27, .333) into the vacation. Williams had three straight multi-hit games and had done that in four of his last six; he is 16 for 51 (.314) since June 16 to lift his average from .162 to .224. The streaky Castellanos is hitting .310 and is also working on a 7-game streak at 9 for 27. He hit in 8 in a row after being called up from Portland, then went 0 for 14 in four games before getting back into streak mode. … Things happen fast in the minor leagues. With the 2022 season only partially over, Chad Tracy has already climbed into 33rd place of 39 on the all-time wins list among Boston Triple-A managers. He just passed Eddie Joost, who managed a full season in the majors with the old Philadelphia A’s before taking over the Sox’ San Francisco affiliate. Rac Slider is next up for Tracy with 48 victories for the PawSox in 1985. … For some reason, the WooSox have a huge edge in shutout games in the last two seasons. They’ve won 15 and lost only 8, the most recent one Sunday in Norfolk.

THE WEEKEND AHEAD…

The WooSox play an unusual three-game series versus the Syracuse Mets at Polar Park starting Friday night. Worcester is just 4-8 against the Mets this season. That includes a split of a six-game series at Polar Park starting on May 31.

Syracuse is 40-50 overall this season, winner of 6 of its last 10 games. Take away the WooSox games and the Mets are just 32-46. The all-time series is very close. Worcester holds an 18-17 edge and is 9-9 at home.

TRIVIA ANSWERS

1. Dick Williams managed Toronto in 1965 and ’66, then managed Oakland to World Series championships in 1972 and ’73.

2. Jackie Bradley Jr. led the Pawtucket Red Sox with 9 home runs in 2015.

CATCHING UP WITH….

The next Pawtucket Red Sox heritage night might be held on Long Island, where the Ducks of the Atlantic League have had three former longtime PawSox players on their roster this season.

That list includes, at the top, Rusney Castillo at age 34, who led the International League in batting with a .319 average in 2018. He was batting .278 for the Ducks and just signed a new deal with Staten Island of that league.

Sam Travis and Deven Marrero have also been Ducks, Marrero getting a minor-league contract with the Mets in late June. He is with Syracuse and should be at Polar Park this weekend. Travis and Marrero both spent parts of four seasons at Pawtucket. Combined, the Long Island players spent 13 years with the PawSox and played 1,307 games.