April 30, 2015

Red Sox Rundown - What, me worry?



Regardless of that huge "bag over the head, kick in the nuts" outing from Clay Tuesday night, I oddly remain eerily calm.  Apparently the scoring changed when I tweeted the above pic as the boxscore today said he only gave up 4 ER, but who really cares? In that start, it didn't look like Buchholz  gave a shit, so why should I? It all added up to the same result - yet another pathetic outing by a Red Sox starter. 

My hope for a sweep in this series was on the table, but Clay whisked that away with his brutal start. But ya know what? I'll take a 12-10 record with a huge smile on my face after what I've observed this month. The chirping for Hamels once again rousts, and Philly management must simply salivate every time one of our starters toes the slab. The fact of the matter is that one guy isn't going to fix this thing. Boston extended Miley, re-upped for Porcello and remain bound to the schizophrenic dawdlings of Buchholz. The Red Sox have put their money where their mouth is, and that gag reflex has been working overtime.

Before we hand over those valuable prospects to "St. Cole", let's take a look at the current state of the AL East after Tuesday insidious loss. The division is full of mediocre teams with plenty of offense, but precious little pitching. While it's true that Boston starters led all of baseball with a league worst 6.02 ERA, check out these two other AL East teams in the top five:


  • Orioles - 5.42 (third place)
  • Blue Jays - 5.34 (fourth place)


    • The Blue Jays' starters are above .500 with a 7-6 record while the Red Sox are tied with Baltimore at 6-7. Would Cole Hamels save either one of those teams? With respect to innings pitched our 112 innings puts us above the Orioles (98 IP) and slightly behind the Jays (114.2). Checking out the Blue Jays the past two nights actually has me feeling somewhat better as their bullpen is an absolute mess as well, but more on this later. 

    If we can string together some competent starts and get the runs per game down to about 4ish, I think we'll be OK for the time being. My reasoning for this is based on the fact that four of the five teams in the AL East are in the top five in runs scored. Toronto leads the Majors with 116, followed by Boston with 109, and then New York at 107 to round out the top three. Baltimore slides in at fifth spot with 104 runs. This is a trend that most likely will continue as the teams in the division will have 19 opportunities beat up on rival starting staffs. Another factor that has kept Boston afloat is that April opponents have been kind allowing plenty of unearned runs to offset some slumping bats. At the same time, Boston's  5.1 runs produced per game have been squandered due to the mammoth 6 runs per that have been allowed by starters.

    Tampa Bay has the best starting staff ERA going away with a 3.51 mark. However, their bullpen has let them down as the 6-7 record indicates. The Rays bullpen ranks in the top ten in highest ERA with a 4.44 mark. This is good for sixth overall as they are sandwiched between Baltimore (fifth @ 4.48) and the Blue Jays (seventh @ 4.39). Tampa joins Boston as the only two teams that have twice scored 7 runs in a game and lost.

    Turning to the Sawx relief corps, I'll just start by saying Edward Mujica has absolutely no business occupying a spot in that bullpen. Seeing his ERA swell to 6.30 should be the death knell for further employment as he also leads the group in homers allowed. All he had to do in Tuesday's game is hold the Jays until Boston got the bats going, but instead, he did what he normally does - stink up the joint. If once wasn't enough Mujica balked twice, and a runner scored from third on his second failed pause. It shouldn't happen twice, especially for an experienced reliever. 

    The dismissal of Anthony Varvaro seemed quite odd as he never had Farrell's confidence it seemed, but I didn't really think he was given a chance. His numbers were not good, but next to Mujica's antics, you'd think he may have earned a longer leash, especially due to the fact that he was effective with the Braves. There could be more than meets the eye here though as Atlanta wasn't really keen on retaining his services either. The seventh, eighth, ninth trio seems set with Ogando, Tazawa and Uehara, but after that, things begin to noticeably depreciate. The workload as of late explains the call for reinforcements with Layne and Hinojosa, however, I think Breslow, Mujica and Ross are just scaring the shit out of Farrell. Breslow's ERA is a tidy 1.83 but that doesn't really tell the whole story. With a BB/9 of 4.83% and the potential for allowing rockets like the moonshot Bautista hit off  him on Tuesday, his usage needs to be monitored. Even though they both broke camp together I personally wanted Layne on the team before Ross, and Ross has done nothing to dissuade my original thinking.
    As you can see in the above tweet of "Mookie Magic", Porcello stepped up in a big way to earn Boston the series win against the Jays and chipped away at that starters' ERA. The Red Sox still remain last in baseball in this category. but it has shrunk to 5.75. This was a glimpse of what things could, and should be. With the exception of his misstep in an Baltimore where he allowed 2 homers and 8 earned runs, Porcello has been decent. If Rick's effort becomes somewhat contagious along with keeping the ball in the park and Hanley and friends keep pounding the rawhide out, I have no reason to believe May won't be a success in the win column as well.

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