CINCINNATI — A late spring rebound?
An early adjustment? A change in fortune?
Call Andrew Vaughn’s improved offensive performance over the last week whatever you want — but don’t call it a competition with rookie first baseman Tim Elko.
“I’m just sticking to my approach,” Vaughn said after an 0-for-4 afternoon in Thursday’s loss to Cincinnati ended his six-game hitting streak. ”I just take the positive from the negative and just keep going.”
Vaughn had gone 6-for-23 with two home runs, three doubles and four RBI since May 8, when ElkoMania hit a fever pitch among Sox fans clamoring for the team to call up the Triple-A slugger and former College World Series champ with 10 home runs and a .348 batting average at Charlotte.
Vaughn, the 2019 first-round draft pick who has fallen far short of sky-high expectations, said Elko’s arrival hasn’t put any more pressure on his shoulders — and it hasn’t lit any fire under him fueling his recent uptick in production.
He’s welcomed his new teammate, with whom he’s expected to alternate at first base and designated hitter in the depths of the Sox rebuild.
“I think it’s just helping the offense. He was raking down in Triple-A, and we’re glad to have him here,” Vaughn said.
Besides smashing a game-winning three-run homer in his second game on Mother’s Day, Elko’s only other big-league hit so far was a single in Wednesday’s 4-2 win over the Reds.
Elko is 2-for-15 overall with five strikeouts — and he’s not after anyone’s job, he says.
“We’re just trying to play together as a team and put runs on the board and win some games,” Elko said.
Despite Sox fans’ frustrations, Vaughn remains a de facto top producer on a team woefully lacking offense. He’s tied for the team lead in home runs (5) and leads the way in RBI (18), while also adding eight doubles and seven walks.
But Vaughn’s numbers a quarter of the way through the season still aren’t pretty after a decent week at the plate. He’s slashing .189/.221/.550, while FanGraphs rates him at minus-0.9 wins above replacement — ranking him among the worst regulars in Major League Baseball.
Sox executives chalk it up to bad luck. Based on his hard-hit rates, Vaughn’s expected batting average is .249 with an extra home run, according to Baseball Savant.
“He’s been one of the more unlucky hitters in baseball,” general manager Chris Getz said last month. “We expect more out of him. I know he’s working very hard, and our job is to get the most out of each player and we know that there’s more on the tank for Andrew.”
Vaughn said that in March and April, “it felt like almost every time I was hitting a rocket, it was getting caught in the gap.”
Luck or not, there’s still plenty of room on a roster desperate for power. Manager Will Venable rejects the narrative of Elko elbowing in on Vaughn’s playing time — or putting question marks on Vaughn’s future with the team.
“That’s just not the case,” Venable said Thursday. “I was transparent with [Vaughn] when we were bringing Elko up to give him a heads up that it was happening, and that it was not an Elko versus Vaughn thing. That’s not how we look at it.”
Assistant GM Josh Barfield said they’ll continue mapping out opportunities. “We’re going to find a way to get both their bats in the lineup.”