Looking at the Red Sox, who on any given night have at least three rookies in their starting lineup, it’s easy to forget that Ceddanne Rafaela hasn’t been here very long, either.

Called up for his debut on Aug. 28, 2023, he’s only 269 games into his big-league career. He’s also the third-youngest player on the active roster, his 25th birthday still over two months away (Sept. 18).

So it’s no surprise that Rafaela is an unfinished product.

The defense is never in doubt. Manager Alex Cora regularly refers to him as the “best defensive center fielder” in the game. Cora also announced Friday that Rafaela, who made history last year as the only player since at least 1901 to play at least 60 games at center and shortstop in the same season, will be “in the mix” for second base moving forward.

Over the last several weeks, however, Rafaela has looked more and more like the hitter the Red Sox believe he will be for many years to come. He entered Friday with MLB’s longest active streaks in games with a run scored (7) and games with an RBI (6). In franchise history, he’s only the sixth player younger than 25 to both score a run and record an RBI in six consecutive games. Ever heard of Ted Williams? Bobby Doerr? Babe Ruth? Not bad company to be in.

“Finally, I started to feel how I wanted to feel, and how I wanted to help the team,” Rafaela told the Herald. “I think that gives a player a lot of confidence, when you’re doing good.”

It’s much more than a six- or seven-game streak at this point, though. Since June 20, Rafaela is batting .343 with a 1.1342 OPS that ranks fourth in the American League. He’s hit six home runs and driven in 17 RBI in that span, during which he also leads the majors in doubles (10), extra-base hits (16), slugging percentage (.761) and total bases (51, tied).

“He’s finishing at-bats,” said hitting coach Pete Fatse. “The contact rates in zone have gone up exponentially. He’s hitting the ball hard, obviously, tapping into some of the pull-side power now, which is nice, but he’s a very intuitive guy, he’s a very smart player.”

For a player who last year struck out at a 26.4% clip and walked just 2.6% of the time, the advancements are somewhat staggering. This year, Rafaela is striking out just 19.4% and walking at a rate of 4.8%. His average exit velocity is up 4.4%, and his hard-hit rate has skyrocketed from 36.9% last year, to 48%. His Isolated Power (ISO) is .199, a 56-point jump from last season, and 40 points better than league average. After finishing last year with 2.8 Wins Above Replacement, he’s worth 3.8 WAR this year.

“I feel like we’re watching him blossom into one of the premier players in our game,” said Rob Refsnyder, the club’s oldest position player at 34 years old and one of its veteran leaders. “I think he should have been an All-Star.”

Refsnyder and Fatse both pointed to simplification as one of the biggest changes to Rafaela’s game.

“If you watch the first year he was in the big leagues with the Red Sox until now, his mechanical adjustments have been incredible,” said Refsnyder. “I don’t know if we’ve highlighted enough how much simpler he’s gotten, and you can see him gaining confidence with his new setup and his new approach.”

“A lot of it is, he’s made a conscious effort to simplify his move,” concurred Fatse, who said Rafaela began making changes during the offseason. “Any time you can simplify your swing and you feel like you can cover more pitches in the zone, you can use your aggressiveness to your benefit because you’re able to finish at-bats with balls in play.”

Rafaela isn’t alone in giving credit to his new teammate, Alex Bregman; several teammates told the Herald the veteran third baseman helped them simplify their processes and hone their craft.

“Bregman helped me a lot this year,” said Rafaela. “He’s been a huge part of what I’m doing right now. He’s probably 90 percent.”

Being over a year removed from signing his eight-year extension has helped, too.

“I didn’t really put pressure on myself,” Rafaela said, “probably just wanted to do too much, to show others, and that’s probably something I didn’t do good. And I forgot the type of player I can be, the type of player I am.”

Crochet out of All-Star Game

Red Sox left-hander Garrett Crochet will not pitch in next week’s MLB All-Star Game in order to focus on resting up for the second half.

MLB announced the decision on Friday, and Crochet said he decided to pull out of the game so he can take advantage of the break and better prepare himself for a playoff push.

“This just makes sense for me and my ability to help the team to take the break that I’m given,” Crochet said. “It’s a huge honor to make the game, it’s a huge honor to play in the game, but I threw in it last year and that was really cool, it was a great experience, this year I just feel like I’m in a little bit of a different boat with playoff aspirations being on the line.”

Crochet is tied for the MLB lead in innings pitched (120.1) and is on pace to comfortably surpass his previous career-high in innings (146), which he set last year. That in itself was a massive jump from the 12.2 innings he threw in 2023 after missing 2022 entirely due to injury.

Crochet likely would have thrown significantly more innings last year had the White Sox not reduced his workload, limiting him to approximately four innings per start throughout the second half.

Following the blockbuster trade that brought Crochet to Boston and the subsequent six-year, $170 million extension he signed in April, the Red Sox have allowed him to pitch without restrictions and he has responded by delivering a Cy Young caliber season. As of this weekend Crochet ranks top-five in the American League in wins (9), ERA (2.39), pitcher WAR (3.5), strikeouts (151) and innings (120.1).

For a pitcher who has largely been spoken about as someone who could be capable of emerging as an ace or as someone with that kind of potential, Crochet said it’s been gratifying to step up and actually do it.

“It’s nice to reward a team that believed in me and dedicated a significant amount financially to me in that belief,” Crochet said. “So yeah, being able to do it already, it feels good but we have a lot of season left.”

Extra innings

When the Red Sox return from the All-Star break for next weekend’s series against the Cubs, Lucas Giolito will take the mound for Friday’s opener, followed by Brayan Bello on Saturday and Crochet on Sunday. … Bregman and Hunter Dobbins were each activated from the injured list ahead of Friday’s game against the Rays. To clear space on the roster, infielder David Hamilton and right-hander Isaiah Campbell were each optioned to Triple-A. … Dropkick Murphys frontman Ken Casey, whose band is scheduled to play a free concert in Quincy on Saturday, threw out the first pitch.