The Season Is On Fire
Here are four things the Red Sox should try to extinguish the flames
The Red Sox season is on fire. I know it says that up top, but I think it’s bad enough to repeat. It’s not over, they’re not eliminated, but they are in trouble. A lot of trouble. After Thursday’s embarrassing 8-1 loss to the well-below-.500 Tigers, their second loss to Detroit in three games, Alex Cora told the media including Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald, “It wasn’t a good effort today.” This not good effort came immediately following not good efforts in series against the Blue Jays and the Rays. Since consecutive 5-4 wins against the Yankees and Blue Jays on July 25th and 26th, the Red Sox are 2-7 and have been outscored 23-42. That’s a 2.5 runs per game average for your Boston Red Sox.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox have taken a 2.5 game divisional lead and turned it into a 1.5 game deficit. While that’s happened, the entire division has tightened. The Blue Jays were 10.5 out, now stand just seven games away. The Yankees have picked up 2.5 games in the division and are now six games out.
These aren’t just recent problems, either. Though the issues go deeper than just nine games.
I’m not sure I’d put Pivetta on that list - there’s a big difference between a mid-5s ERA and an ERA that starts with “7” - but Perez and Richards have been straight up bad. I’m getting washed John Smoltz vibes from Richards. Perez is more of a pitching version of Bobby Dalbec, minus the upside and youth.
The offense has slowed as well. I wrote about the Red Sox offensive struggles here a few days ago, and nothing has changed since I put e-pen to e-paper. The offense generated seven runs in three games against a bad Tigers pitching staff. There were times when it felt like the Tigers were putting their arms around the Red Sox and saying, ‘You can do it, friend! Here, [drops fly ball] let me help you.” But, gentlemanly as you please, the Red Sox would always refuse their help, popping out to shortstop with two runners in scoring position, or striking out in the most respectful and polite way possible with the bases loaded.
So, okay, there are problems. But all is not lost! Let’s talk solutions. What are some potential fixes? As Chris Hatfield of Sox Prospects noted on twitter, you can’t fix the entire roster. And of course he’s correct. Now that the trade deadline has passed [throws out shoulder celebratory fist pumping], Boston’s options are limited, but not extinguished. So, what can they do? Here are four things that will make the team better right now.
Chris Sale needs to pitch for Boston this weekend.
The Red Sox have Sale set to face the Scranton Wilkes-Barre Railriders in what is hoped to be his final rehab appearance. During his comeback from TJ surgery, Sale has thrown 15 innings, given up three runs, walked two, and struck out 27. So, I ask you, what more will be accomplished by sending him out to face the Yankees Triple-A team in Scranton while the Red Sox, with Garrett Richards on the mound, get pounded in Toronto?Sale might not be fully stretched out yet, that’s true, but Martin Perez was fully stretched out and he didn’t make it out of the second inning. Garrett Richards is fully stretched out and he’s pitched more than five innings in two of his last eight starts. That’s a low enough bar Chris Sale should have no trouble stepping over it, forget having to jump at all.
Richards has faced the Blue Jays five times this season and has a 6.15 ERA against them. The Jays are hitting .321/.402/.547 with five homers in the 26.1 innings Richard has pitched against them. I mean, what is the end game here? Even if Sale has a horrible start, he’s not likely to be worse than Richards has been. It’s clear that pitching Sale over Richards gives the Red Sox the better chance to win that game.
It’s possible the Red Sox are trying to save Sale, the side-arming lefty, for a team that is less right-handed than Toronto, who sports seven righties in their starting lineup. That makes sense until you learn that righties are hitting .318/.397/.537 against Richards this season. If the Red Sox send Richards to the mound in Toronto the Blue Jays are extremely likely to crush him. They are far less likely to crush Chris Sale, not because of platoon splits but because he’s Chris Sale. There’s just no way to justify sending Richards out to make his next start.
And that brings me to my next point…Put Tanner Houck in the rotation and keep him there.
I continue to think that Houck is best in smaller samples, that his best use is in a more Garrett Whitlock-type of role where he can be selectively deployed against right-handed hitters, and where he doesn’t have to face lineups multiple times. That kind of role is also great for keeping the Red Sox in a game that might normally get out of hand. Bring in Houck for three innings, save the pen, and give the offense a chance to get back into the game. It gives the Red Sox great flexibility, it sounds great on paper, and I think it’s great in practice.
However, you might recall the season is on fire. It’s time to put the best players in a position to play most often. That means it’s time for Houck to be used more rather than less, even if those later innings aren’t as ideal for him to deal with. He’s started the last two times through the rotation, and that needs to continue, even if he has a bad start or two. Also, like Sale vs. Richards above, even if Houck only goes four innings, that’s what the Red Sox were getting from Perez and Richards anyway, and if he goes further, hey, great!
Find a nice place to put Martin Perez and Garrett Richards that is not the Red Sox rotation.
This one is kind of obvious based on the previous two, but just to be clear about it, we’ve seen enough of Richards and Perez. Neither are good pitchers. If the Red Sox weren’t in a playoff race, fine, you paid them, you have options on both for 2022, wins and losses don’t matter so keep running them out there and see if either one can figure something out that would make them useful next season. Now though, wins and losses do matter. The Red Sox are in a race to the playoffs and both pitchers are preventing them from achieving their goal. Neither is going to have his option picked up for next season. If the Red Sox brain trust thinks either fits well into a bullpen role, fine, great. If not, then it’s time to say good-bye.
The argument against doing this is depth. What if Houck and/or Sale gets hurt again? What if you have to rely on a bullpen game, or Matt Andriese? I submit to you, in that case, you’ve lost, which is exactly the same outcome as what happens when you start Perez or Richards. The Rays are going to keep winning. The Yankees and Blue Jays are roaring back into the race. There are only two months left in this season. There isn’t time to lose and running Perez and Richards out there at this point is losing.Send Bobby Dalbec to Triple-A.
I was wrong about Dalbec. I thought he would swat a ton of doubles and homers and be a powerful if strikeout-prone part of the Red Sox lineup. Oops. Nope. The reality has been that Dalbec has been below replacement level. To be clear, that doesn’t mean below average. That means he’s been below the level of a freely available Triple-A-ish talent. He’s been worse than that. He seems like a nice and earnest young man (I’ve never felt older in my life) but he’s been given a huge amount of opportunity by the team and he’s not been able to make it work.
This isn’t punitive. This simply isn’t working. Dalbec hasn’t shown any signs he’s figuring things out. Since June, in fact, he’s gotten steadily worse. If he was walking at least, that would be one thing, but he’s not. If he was a good fielder, that would be another thing, but he’s not that either. You could concoct an argument around “he’s not hitting, but he’s getting on base a bit and he’s a good first baseman” but unfortunately he's not helping in either phase of the game.
So, okay, Matt, you genius, you’re sending the only first baseman down to Triple-A, who are you going to play at first base? Obviously when Kyle Schwarber gets off the IL he should start there every day. But, until then, I submit to you that A) I don’t know, and B) it doesn’t matter. Dalbec was so bad replacing and marginally improving upon his production won’t be difficult in the least. Start Franchy Cordero. Start Kevin Plawecki. Start JD Martinez (actually this isn’t a terrible idea though I seriously doubt Martinez would go for it). Call up Josh Ockimey from Triple-A. Do something a C- baseball blogger hasn’t thought of. What is happening now is not working, we’ve reached the point where we know it isn’t going to work, and we need to come up with another solution. We had a shot to solve this conclusively at the trade deadline, but we decided not to. Maybe that was the right call, I don’t know, but regardless it’s led us to where we are, and where we are is not good enough.
It’s time to acknowledge that what is being done now isn’t working. It’s time to look for solutions and implement them. Those solutions might not work immediately or at all, but they’re not going to be worse than repeating the same mistakes ad nauseam while the season circles the bowl. The Red Sox are in trouble. They’re not going to be able to fix everything. Some of it is going to have to be, as Alex Cora intimated, players playing better. But don’t let the inability to fix everything prevent the fixing of one or two (or four) things. We’ve reached that point in the season. It’s time to make hard choices. Before it’s too late.