Red Sox Announce Masataka Yoshida Decision Before Blue Jays Series Finale

The Boston Red Sox benched Anthony Seigler on Sunday and handed the leadoff spot to Masataka Yoshida against right-hander Kevin Gausman, as they try to take the three-game series by winning the finale against the Toronto Blue Jays at Fenway Park.

Twenty-four hours after Dylan Cease restricted Boston’s offense to a single hit, Chad Tracy reached for the only hitter in his clubhouse with a documented history of solving Gausman.

Seigler had batted leadoff almost every day since late June, Friday and Saturday included. He went 4-for-5 in the series opener with the first leadoff home run of his career, two doubles and two RBIs, falling a triple shy of the cycle in a 6-4 win. Saturday brought an 0-for-3 with a walk against Cease.

Yoshida’s Career Numbers Against Kevin Gausman

Yoshida is 8-for-15 lifetime off Gausman with three doubles, a home run and four RBIs, good for a .533 average and a 1.467 OPS, according to Stathead numbers. Fifteen at-bats is a small sample. It is also the largest sample a Red Sox hitter has.

Seigler has none. The 27-year-old, recalled from Triple-A Worcester on June 20, has never faced Gausman in a major league game.

He resumed switch-hitting in June after pitching the idea to Craig Breslow and Tracy himself, according to the Boston Globe, and went 3-for-6 with a double and two walks batting right-handed in his first look at lefties.

Yoshida has a reverse split, but his head-to-head numbers against Gausman apparently outweigh that issue in Tracy’s mind. The fourth-year player from Japan has hit .278 with a .389 slugging percentage in 18 at-bats against left-handers this season, but just .232 with a .313 mark in 112 at-bats against right-handers, according to CBS Sports data.

Yoshida is getting only his seventh chance to bat in the leadoff spot this season.

Seigler has hardly hit anywhere else. More than 72 percent of his plate appearances have come from the leadoff spot, but he entered Sunday batting with 15 hits in 74 official at-bats and a .620 OPS from that spot in the order.

Boston Red Sox Move On From Dylan Cease Shutout

Cease carried a no-hitter into the sixth before Andruw Monasterio doubled, then finished a one-hit shutout with 12 strikeouts in Toronto’s 6-0 win. He became the first Blue Jays pitcher to throw a one-hit complete-game shutout since Brandon Morrow in August 2010. Boston’s only other serious contact was a Yoshida fly ball to center.

It was only Boston’s second loss in 18 games. The Red Sox were 32-46 on June 24 and then won 20 of 23, including a 15-game streak that matched the 1946 franchise record, according to CBS Sports, before Baltimore ended it Wednesday. But the Red Sox have now lost two of their last three games and must win Sunday to claim their sixth straight series victory.

That surge left Boston 53-50 and third in the American League East, 7 1/2 games behind Tampa Bay, and in the second AL Wild Card spot, half a game ahead of the Cleveland Guardians with the trade deadline eight days out. Toronto sits 48-57 and last in the division, 13 1/2 back, playing out a season that has become an evaluation exercise around individual performances like those of Cease and first-year Japan import Kazuma Okamoto.

Ranger Suárez returns from the injured list to start for Boston Sunday. Gausman brings a 4-9 record and a 4.51 ERA to the Fenway Park mound.

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