BOSTON — Since returning to the Red Sox via trade over the offseason, Jackie Bradley Jr. has slid seamlessly back onto the team where he spent the first eight seasons of his career.
It’s like he never left — and that includes at the plate, where his offense has at least come closer to its usual level after an abysmal 2021, particularly at home where he’s hitting over .300 with an .800 OPS.
One big difference compared to 2021? A contact lens.
Bradley found out about his trade to the Red Sox while he was at Mookie Betts’ wedding on Dec. 1. The MLB lockout went into effect hours later so he barely had time to connect with anyone on the club. When he got to spring training in March after the lockout lifted, he did a lengthier intake physical where the Red Sox found astigmatism — a relatively common condition where an imperfection in the curvature of the cornea or lens can cause blurry vision — in his right eye. The Red Sox ordered a prescription contact lens, which was delayed slightly because of supply chain issues. Once it arrived and he started wearing it, he noticed an immediate difference.
“Obviously (astigmatism) affects your vision and makes you see different depths,” Bradley said. “So they went right to work trying to correct that and I’ve been able to kind of use (the contact lens) and get used to it during spring training and the first couple months, and I feel like I can see better.”
It seems like a remarkably simple tweak. As a left-handed batter, Bradley’s right eye faces the pitcher, so it only makes sense that sharper vision would help him to pick up pitches better. It wasn’t something Bradley noticed much in the past. He didn’t think his vision was blurry, but now with the new contact lens he, ahem, clearly sees the difference.
“Seeing is very vital to this game so I think there could be a correlation where I’m making more contact and not fouling off as many balls as I had been, and my strikeout rate has gone down,” he said. “I don’t know when it came about or how long I had it, though.”
On the season Bradley is hitting .233 with a .616 OPS, up from an abysmal .163 and .497 OPS in 134 games for Milwaukee last year. This year, he’s striking out 20.6 percent of the time, well below his 25.6 percent career average. At Fenway, he’s hitting .313 with an .832 OPS over 31 games with 11 doubles, a triple, a homer and 15 RBI. He can’t explain the home-road splits as he’s hitting just .151 with .393 OPS in 29 road games, but he’s working on it.
With 20/15 vision, Bradley wears the contact in his right eye only during games. It was hard to get used to at first during cold and windy April games. He’s still getting used to the feel of it and prefers to wear a pair of plastic sports eyeglasses during batting practice. But after those first few weeks, there was a clear improvement. His April OPS was .458, consistent with his awful 2021, but since the start of May he’s been at a .700 mark, exactly in line with his career average.
“I’m still a new contact wearer, this is my first time, it is very weird,” he said. “I hated it for the first three weeks. Just felt like something was constantly in my eye — it was weird, drying out, blurry, especially on windy days; early in the season it was windy and cold so it felt like it was constantly just dry, so I’m still a newbie at wearing contacts.”
But it’s not just the better vision that has helped Bradley at the plate. Manager Alex Cora has noticed the 32-year-old being much more intentional in his batting practice sessions in hitting the ball to all fields, something that’s carried over into games.
“If you see his batting practice, there’s a 100 percent effort of trying to stay inside the ball and driving to left field,” Cora said. “Especially here, it’s been beautiful going the other way, hitting the ball hard the other way.”
Bradley acknowledged it’s something he’s made a focus this season during his early work.
“Things are a lot easier and slower-paced during batting practice so you feel like you can work on some things and maneuver the ball how you want to,” he said. “Obviously during the game things are a little faster and you’re competing and trusting the work you put in that day, and kind of letting your talent show through.”
The work is paying off. A single to left field against Shohei Ohtani in Anaheim. A triple to left-center in early June against Cincinnati. In two games over the weekend, Bradley shot a single through the hole with a runner on, scoring the run each time.
“When you’re working hard and not getting the results you want it’s very frustrating,” he said. “But sometimes it’s good to see the fruits of your labor coming through.”
(Top photo: Sam Navarro / USA Today)