Blake Swihart, mobbed by his teammates after hitting the game-winning walk-off ground-rule double. (Adam Glanzman/Getty Images)
BOSTON (WBZ-AM) -- Blake Swihart entered last night's Red Sox win in the 10th inning, then delivered the winning RBI double in the 13th to help his club past the Phillies 2-1. Swihart was batting .165 with a .422 OPS thru his first 39 games, but he's hitting .429 with an OPS pushing 1200 his last 10.
"I'm seeing the ball well, just getting at-bats, and just going out there and trying to help the team win," Swihart said.
Sox skipper Alex Cora and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski are excited to see Swihart settle into a groove.
"There's no panic anymore," Cora said. "He gets ahead in the count ... He's putting good at-bats. He's talking the game, he's thinking the game, you can see. I think his swing's back to what it was in Spring Training, that's great to see."
"Blake's a good player," Dombrowski said. "He was in a very unfortunate situation early in the year, we talked about that. We still liked him as a player. He didn't have an opportunity to play very much at that time--and it was just circumstances. We had two catchers in front of him. We had a good, solid club all the way around, but now you can see as time goes on and he continues to play, he's a very good catcher. He's improved--and one thing about him, he worked hard all the time. You can see his catching has improved, he throws well, and he can swing the bat. So, we're thrilled that he's with us, and now he's got an opportunity to play."
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Adam Kaufman (@AdamMKaufman) reports