Chaim Bloom tries to explain why Bobby Dalbec was Red Sox' starting shortstop in 12th game of season

BOSTON -- Prior to this season, Bobby Dalbec spent 1,772 innings in the field at the major league level. Of those 1,772 innings, only 14 were spent at the shortstop position. That amounts to 0.8 percent of his total time in the field being spent at shortstop. In the minor leagues, he entered the year having played 2,947.2 innings in the field, and just three innings at shortstop. That is 0.1 percent of his time in the field being spent at shortstop.

That is because Bobby Dalbec is not a shortstop.

Nevertheless, in just the 12th game of the season, Alex Cora penciled in Dalbec as his starting shortstop against the Rays in Tampa.

Considering Dalbec wasn't even in the majors this year until Adam Duvall went on the injured list, and considering Dalbec isn't a shortstop, the situation doesn't really reflect well on the state of the Red Sox roster. (Dalbec booted a routine ground ball to his left in the Rays' second at-bat of the game, working to set up a three-run home run in the first inning. It was his lone miscue of the night.)

On Thursday morning, Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom was asked during his interview on WEEI's The Greg Hill Show how and why an MLB team with a high payroll and higher expectations can be in this position just two weeks into a season.

Bloom first noted that the Red Sox are trying to maximize their right-handed bats, given the stretch of lefties that they're facing -- an irrelevant answer with regard to the shortstop position. (Did you know a lefty hasn't fielded a baseball at short since 1905?) Bloom then explained that Masataka Yoshida's minor injury forced him to be a late scratch on Wednesday, thus requiring the team to "scramble a little bit in the short term."

 "In the short term, obviously the best way to do that last night, Alex was looking at the options for last night, making sure we're resting who we need to rest, and the value of Kiké to be able to bounce out to center field helps there. So that obviously leaves us without our shortstop for the night. And you know, we may see that for a couple of days while we're going through this stretch. I think once we're facing a more normal slate of starting pitching, we'll be able to get this to a point where we're having a little more consistency with that position. But, I'm recognizing that there's been some inconsistency defensively. I think the track record will tell you that Kiké Hernandez is a pretty good baseball player, pretty good infielder, and we feel good about him when he's playing shortstop."

In a follow-up question, Bloom was asked if he fully endorses the team's plan to have Hernandez as the everyday shortstop.

"Yeah, look, as we get healthier over the course of the season, we'll have other options that I think will see time over there. But we have a lot of confidence in him," Bloom said.

Hernandez went 2-for-4 with an RBI double in Wednesday night's loss, raising his average, raising his batting average to .125 and his OPS to .580. He also leads all MLB shortstops with five errors, despite ranking 16th in total chances.

Later in the interview, Bloom explained the philosophy that the 162-game season is really made up of 162 one-game seasons. Greg Hill Show producer Chris Curtis asked for clarification: "If it's 162 one-game seasons, then why is Bobby Dalbec starting at short on April 12. Like it's not like you're in July and there has been this -- it feels like the club opened the year with holes that it failed to fill in the offseason, and it's already coming back before we're even at Patriots' Day."

Bloom answered: "Again, I mean, whether April or July, sometimes you end up in situations on a given night where you don't have everybody available that you want. And in that case, and I know Alex spoke to this last night, Rob [Refsnyder] had played a bunch of days in a row, which comes with having this stretch of lefties. That's something we want to make sure he's available for, and it makes sense to give him a day. That is ultimately going to benefit us more over the long haul because you've got to make sure you're using players right, you've got to make sure you're taking care of players. Obviously with everybody who was down last night, that wasn't ideal for us. But there's a reason that we explored that possibility in spring training just so we were ready for it if it did happen, knowing that we had this stretch coming up on our schedule, and you know, is it perfect, is it ideal? No, but that's going to happen over the course of the season. Obviously you don't want it to happen every night, but you are going to go through stretches for a day or two or three where guys are gonna have to step up. Every team goes through it. This is happening around the league in a lot of different places. You can look at different teams and not always see them having their ideal lineup out there on a given night. That's part of the game. And, you know, no excuses, guys need to step up. You know, we need to make sure we've got different options. But this is, you know, this is part of the game, and it creates opportunity. And obviously, you need to see what guys do with that opportunity."

The answers surely don't help the situation, but there's little Bloom could have said to improve matters. The team spent a year lowballing Xander Bogaerts while claiming he was a priority, only to let him go to free agency, where he left for big money over a long, long period of time. (Bogaerts has started all 13 of the Padres' games this year, hitting .327 with a 1.046 OPS thus far.) The Red Sox opted to rely on Trevor Story, whose throwing arm issues kept teams from signing him last year ... and whose throwing arm issues led to surgery in the offseason.

All of which led to Hernandez getting the starting job, and then to a non-shortstop starting at shortstop in the 12th game of the season, and booting a routine ground ball in the first inning, and the Red Sox dropping to 5-7 on the season, thus remaining in last place in the AL East.