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Seemingly out of nowhere, the Red Sox announced that
they had traded their #15 overall prospect—23-year-old SS
Santiago Espinal—to the Blue Jays for OF/1B
Steve Pearce.
"Huh?', you may ask? The rationale from
Dave Dombrowski deals with boosting the team's effectiveness against left-handed pitching—with Pearce likely "spelling"
Mitch Moreland or
J.D. Martinez against particularly tough port-siders. Said Dombrowski,
"We’ve been looking for a guy who can hit left-handed pitching, even though we’ve done better in recent times. We’ve talked about adding one more guy we can put in the lineup against a tough left-hander. He’s [Pearce] traditionally hit left-handed pitching very well. He’s a threat to drive in runs, drive the ball out of the ballpark. We think he’s a guy who can be a key cog for us against certain left-handed pitching." This season, Pearce is hitting .306 against lefties.
