Boston Red Sox: How Will Middlebrooks Compares to Wade Boggs as a Rookie

It took the injury of Red Sox third baseman Carney Lansford in 1982 for a young Wade Boggs to get his chance to play in the big leagues.

Up came Boggs, and the rest is history.

Boggs went on to have a fantastic career as a third baseman for the Red Sox, Yankees and (Devil) Rays, respectively. 

He retired in 1999 with 2440 career games under his belt, a career .328 batting average and 12 All-Star games to his name. Boggs was a two-time Gold Glove winner with eight career Silver Slugger awards on his shelf as well.

In short, he was pretty good.

He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2005, his first year of eligibility.

The scenario that brings Will Middlebrooks to the majors has many people reminiscing about Wade Boggs' debut. The situation is very similar. Boggs took over for the 1981 AL batting champion in Lansford.

While Kevin Youkilis has never won the batting title, he has come close on multiple occasions. He is known in Boston as a reliable batter with a great ability to get on base.

Youk goes down for a couple of weeks and Middlebrooks came up.

Though the youngster has only played in six games thus far in his short major league career, I thought it would be interesting to compare how Middlebrooks' start compares to that of Wade Boggs through six games.

Through six games, Boggs had 18 official at-bats in 21 plate appearances. Middlebrooks has 26 at-bats in 27 plate appearances.

Boggs had scored two runs on three hits, driving in one run and walking twice.

Middlebrooks, on the other hand, has scored five runs on nine hits, driving in nine and walking once.

Of Boggs' three hits, none went for extra bases. Middlebrooks has four doubles and three home runs.

Boggs' batting line? .167/.286/.222/.508.

Middlebrooks' batting line? .346/.370/.846/1.217.

Suffice to say, the comparisons between Middlebrooks and Boggs end at the scenarios that brought them up.

Boggs would go on to have a stellar rookie year, finishing off with a .349/.406/.441/.847 batting line and 118 hits in 104 games.

The jury is still out on just what Middlebrooks can accomplish, but if the early statistics are any indication of things to come, Sox fans are in for a treat.