For Xander Bogaerts, in-game adjustments bring consistency

Bogaerts, in particular, has demonstrated an ability to achieve drastic improvement in many facets of his game, making what coach Brian Butterfield recently characterized as a "quantum leap" forward.

A player who looked absolutely lost a year ago at this time now exudes an air of remarkable confidence in his abilities.

It seems safe to suggest that the Red Sox would rather entrust Friday's game-on-the-line plate appearance to Bogaerts — their most consistent performer this year — than anyone else on the roster.

After all, he is ninth in the majors in average against lefties (.372) as well as fourth in the majors and first in the American League with runners in scoring position (.405).

"He's really come into his own," pitcher Rick Porcello said. "I watch him every night, and I think about what I'd do to get him out. He covers both sides of the plate, he's hitting the breaking ball well. It's fun to watch."

It's hard not to watch Bogaerts's performance with a mindfulness about the drastic nature of its contrast to 2014. Last year, through 56 games, he was hitting .304 with a .395 OBP and .464 slugging mark. Then, opposing teams developed the proverbial book on him, and he endured a struggle of profound depth, hitting .147/.193/.212 over a 63-game stretch before finishing the year with a solid final month.

This year, by contrast, Bogaerts has been the one making the adjustments on the league. After a relatively modest start to the year — he was hitting .263 with a .312 OBP and .369 slugging mark through 50 games — the 22-year-old has grown into a performance that has merits recognition as a frontline shortstop. In his last 46 games — since he introduced a toe tap in Texas that coincided with a three-hit game — he's hitting .351/.366/.452.

He no longer looks like someone who is consistently guessing wrong. Instead, he's reading the game as it unfolds and making pitch-to-pitch adjustments as he did with his walkoff hit on Friday, when he swung through an elevated 2-1 changeup by Tigers lefty Blaine Hardy before hitting a game-winning single up the middle on a 2-2 changeup.

"I was a bit too aggressive early in the count swinging at bad pitches. With that 2-1 pitch, he told me what he was going to do with the next pitch," said Bogaerts. "I was ready for it."

The result of that ability to make rapid, in-game adjustments — a trait that distinguished Bogaerts dating to his time in Single A Greenville — is immense across-the-board improvement in nearly every facet of the game. The areas in which he proved most vulnerable last year — hitting with two strikes, hitting with runners in scoring position — are the ones in which he's now excelling.

For now, Bogaerts has compromised power for a successful approach that emphasizes contact. But given that a) there's known raw power in the tank for a player who in 2012 became the first Red Sox teenager in 50 years to reach 20 homers and b) he's shown the ability to make major leaps forward in his offensive approach and performance in putting the ball in play, there's reason to believe in the possibility of a major step forward at some point in the next year or two in his ability to hit for power.

The result is something of an anchor for a season gone adrift, something that permits the Red Sox to think that there can be more promising times to come.

Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter@AlexSpeier.