MINNEAPOLIS — Disgust bubbled as the ball rose into the air.
In the top of the fourth inning Thursday afternoon, Rafael Devers got the fastball he was looking for from Twins starter Joe Ryan in the spot he was looking for it, at the top of the zone. But he missed it, a popup floating straight overhead.
Devers paused in the batter’s box, raised his bat overhead, and delivered an ax-like blow to the dirt in front of the plate. The bat snapped at the handle as Devers started out of the box on a desultory journey down the line. When the ball settled in the glove of first baseman Donovan Solano, Devers smashed his helmet on the ground.
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The play was hardly central in Minnesota’s 6-0 blanking of the Red Sox. But the eruption spoke to how Devers’s offensive performance has fallen far short of his standards.
“I’m not feeling good at the plate,” Devers said through translator Carlos Villoria Benítez. “To be honest, I’m not who I’m supposed to be at the plate.
“I’m not happy with the way that I’m performing this year. I know that I can give way more than what I’m doing right now. That’s one of the things that kind of stings, that I’m not producing the way I know I can produce.”
Devers is hitting .238 with a .302 on-base percentage and .480 slugging mark, well short of the .292/.352/.532 line he forged from 2019-22. His glimpses of brilliance this year — a two-homer game in San Diego, the how’d-he-do-that homer off a Gerrit Cole changeup — have been fireflies, flickering then disappearing.
And yet Devers still ranks among the big league leaders with 17 homers and finished Thursday’s game tied for the lead with 58 RBIs, a product of the number of runners the Sox have had on base and the 26-year-old’s strong marks with men in scoring position (.299/.406/.623, compared with .212/.252/.391 with the bases empty).
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“That’s the sign of a guy that expects a lot out of himself,” teammate Justin Turner said of Devers’s frustration. “It’d be real easy to say, ‘I’m leading the league in RBIs. It’s all good.’ But that’s not the way he’s wired.
“He wants to be better. He wants to be good every time up there. He wants to be productive every time. That’s what makes him great.”
So, what’s happening?
The aggressive Devers is chasing pitches at a slightly lower rate this year than last, and he’s swinging and missing slightly less than a year ago.
But his timing has been off. When he barrels pitches, he remains capable of launching them. For much of the season, however, he has been too early or too late, creating rollover grounders or strikeouts.
“I don’t know what it is right now,” said Devers. “I’m working on stuff in the cage. Sometimes I’m trying to look for a pitch and they don’t throw it to me, and then when they throw it, I’m already late.”
The attack on his equipment following a popup on a fastball wasn’t coincidental. Since the start of May, Devers is just 9 for 52 (.173) with 19 strikeouts and one homer against four-seamers.
“He’s missing fastballs,” said manager Alex Cora. “That’s why he’s frustrated.”
A struggle to time fastballs, in turn, has left Devers vulnerable to being out of sorts on everything else.
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“When you’re late, the natural tendency of a hitter, the counterbalance, is to cheat and say, ‘I want to get out in front,’ “ said hitting coach Pete Fatse. “When your timing is good, you can let the ball travel.
“It’s about getting back to that, being on time in a position to attack the fastball and then using the whole field, since he can do damage everywhere.
“Ultimately, Raffy’s the big man in our lineup, and we’ve got to make sure he’s in a position to do damage every night.”
That challenge is elevated in some ways this year. Fatse and Cora noted that with the departures of Xander Bogaerts and J.D. Martinez, Devers is adjusting to different lineup dynamics.
“Although he’s been the guy for a while, now he’s the guy,” said Cora. “There’s no big names around him.”
“He’s the guy that every team is circling in the lineup with a red pen,” said Fatse.
Devers noted he’s seeing more non-fastballs and more pitches out of the zone than in any other season, forcing him to embrace patience that feels unnatural. The result is a search for timing that will allow him to go on the scorching runs that have been commonplace in his career, when he hits everything.
“At one point, he’s going to go off, and then we can sit back and relax and enjoy the show,” said Cora.
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Until then, Devers and the Sox take solace in that they have been one of the better offenses in the game, plating 5.1 runs per game. Devers, whose .780 OPS ranks seventh on the team, has been a part of that thanks to his run production, but he has yet to perform as the true engine of the lineup.
He remains convinced that will change.
“I think I’m going to end up having a great year and this time will just pass,” said Devers. “Of course, I feel happy to be part of this team. They’re not waiting for Carita to produce. We have a lot of good players around me, a lot of guys that are having a good year.
“When I start hitting the way that I know I can hit, this team is going to be way better. So, I’m happy that the team that we have, the way that we’re producing. It’s just a matter of time until I get my timing back and we’ll be even better.”
Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @alexspeier.