Kyle Schwarber, who the Boston Red Sox acquired at the 2021 trade deadline for a moderately cheap price, turned out to be an A+ acquisition. Now, the left-handed bat wants to return for another year, or even more, after the Sox fell short of a World Series as they were eliminated by the Astros in Game 6 of the ALCS.
“I mean, I wish I could tell everyone I’m going to,” Schwarber said when asked if he sees himself in Boston in the future after Game 6. “I just want to say thank you to the whole group. Being the new guy coming in, it’s not easy, right? The thing is I never played with any one of these guys before. No previous experience. These guys made it so easy on me just to be able to come in. And me being hurt, like, they could all look at me sideways and think why did we trade for a guy that’s hurt, right?”
The outfielder, who fits better at a DH spot in the American League with his lackluster defense, learned to play first base with Boston. While he made a couple of costly errors that quite literally almost ended up costing the Sox a playoff spot in the grand scheme of things, he made up for it with his elite bat.
The 28-year-old is also from Waltham, Massachusetts, and bought the Waltham Fire Department pizza for Game 6.
“I just want to say thank you to the whole group,” said Schwarber. “Starting from A.C. to the coaching staff to the players, to the front office that they all let me be myself. That’s the biggest thing. You’re coming into a really good situation and you just kind of want to mold right in. You don’t want to be a roadblock or an obstacle. You don’t want to feel like the whole group needs to get to know you. It’s like I just want to kind of mold in and go from there.”
Across 41 games with Boston, Schwarber hit .291/.345/.522, slugging seven homers to go along with 34 runs, 18 RBI, an elite walk rate of 19.6% while he posted a 161 wRC+.
“And, I mean, this is definitely a clubhouse that I could see myself wanting to stay in,” Schwarber said. “These guys are amazing. I said this, it’s two World Series teams going at it. This is a World Series clubhouse, and I would love to hopefully see if that opportunity comes back.”
Schwarber is a free agent now after he was signed to a one-year, $10M deal by the Nationals last offseason.
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