There’s been a ton of justifiable debate about Masataka Yoshida’s standing with the Boston Red Sox this winter, but the 32-year-old has sent a message during the World Baseball Classic.

With two home runs and a .500 batting average through his first 10 at-bats for Team Japan at the WBC, Yoshida has looked like a world-class slugger, which flies in the face of some of the months he’s had in Boston. And his role on Team Japan is much better defined than it is for the Red Sox, anyway.

Because Boston has four outfielders who deserve everyday playing time, Yoshida will have a tough time taking DH at-bats away from Jarren Duran and Roman Anthony if everyone is healthy. Manager Alex Cora has a tough job on his hands if everyone is healthy, but he doesn’t seem worried.

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Cora “will make it work” with logjam

Cora was asked Sunday how he would find at-bats for the hot-hitting Yoshida in the middle of that outfield/DH logjam, and the skipper was upbeat about the Team Japan star being a key cog in the Boston machine this year.

“We’re about to find out, right? When you hit in this league, you always find ways to play those guys,” Cora said, per Ian Browne of MLB.com.” The cool thing is that we got good players here, right? And it’s up to me to make it work. We will make it work.”

Cora also revealed that early this spring, during his individual meetings with each of the players, he had reassuring words for Yoshida before he departed to Tokyo to compete for the WBC.

“The message was, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing, we like who you are. You can hit. You were our best hitter at the end of the season last year’” Cora told Browne. “He proved it. ‘So just have a great WBC, and see you probably March 18 or 19.”’

Yoshida was one of the best hitters in baseball during the first half of the 2023 season, as Cora was quick to point out to Browne. His shoulder injury started barking at him that year, disrupted his entire 2024 campaign, then held him out of action for the first half of last year after he underwent surgery.

Is it possible the Red Sox are about to see the Team Japan version of Yoshida in action right from the jump this year? If so, they’ll also have to keep a great hitter on the bench just about every night.