I’ll start with a simple question. Do you know who is on the Red Sox right now? Me neither. There were four - FOUR! - players who played in Sunday’s game for the Red Sox who I had never seen before, and I write a stupid newsletter about the team! But I had never seen their faces. Which was weird. It’s really true, we do root for laundry.
It feels like the Red Sox are just making up names of dudes and then bringing them to life and throwing them into the game. “Now batting, number 75, Floam Bigglesworth!” Oh, Pivetta has COVID? Better call Frost Goblin up to pitch. I stole that last one from the geniuses at Productive Outs. I love them so.
The Red Sox did basically call up Frost Goblin on Sunday though. Here’s the list of pitchers who threw for Boston on Sunday.
Goblin isn’t on there, but he might as well be. None of those guys was on the roster on July 29th, which was basically a month ago. Well, Ryan Brasier was but he was also on the 60-Day IL. Hansel Robles was on the Twins. The rest were in Triple-A Worcester. Kutter Crawford made his first appearance in Triple-A on July 28th. Before that he was in Double-A. This is a rag-tag bunch the Sox ran out there, and they did it because there are now 11 Red Sox players on the COVID-IL. The Red Sox crossed from the ‘spell out the number’ level to the ‘type the actual number’ level on Sunday when they put both Danny Santana and that day’s starting pitcher, Nick Pivetta, on the list.
I titled this post “The State Of Things” so you’d think the state of things would be pretty bad considering the above information. And, they kinda are. We should all be worried about the health of these people, both now, and after (hopefully) they recover from this deadly illness. As far as the baseball team though, they’re oddly alright. Yeah, they got kinda run over by the Rays in the first two games of their four game series in Tampa, but the Sox fought back to tie the series. Yeah, they lost last night after giving up five in the ninth, but they won the first two of the series, and look at that list of pitchers again. Now tell me you expected a win there.
The bullpen, which has been a major source of consternation in Red Sox Nation, has oddly rounded into form. Not perfectly, not without hiccups, but things are on the look up. Garrett Whitlock has continued to be Nails Johnson whenever he’s been called upon. It’s uncanny how well the kid has pitched. He’s a 25-year-old Rule 5 pick who was coming off Tommy John surgery and hadn’t ever pitched above Double-A before, and now he’s the best reliever on the Boston Red Sox. That’s quite a thing!
The other big bullpen development is also a Garrett, Garrett Richards. Richards was dropped from the rotation because he was so bad, even the pitching starved Red Sox couldn’t take it anymore. At the time, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d decided to DFA him, but they didn’t. Richards moved to the bullpen and the results since have been nothing short of miraculous.
As a starter, Richards put up a 5.22 ERA. As a reliever, he’s put up an 0.68 ERA. And it’s not all luck either. It’s a small sample, sure, but the underlying numbers say Richards has pitched far better out of the pen than out of the rotation. And it’s even better than that, because, since Richards is basically stretched out as a starter (even if he never got that far into games), the Red Sox can use him for multiple innings out of the pen. Three of his seven relief appearances have been for at least three innings, and in all three of those he’s held the opposition scoreless. Heck, he held the Yankees hitless for three innings, but nobody noticed because the Sox were already down 4-1 at the time. Between Richards and Whitlock, the Red Sox might have something if they can get the rest of their bullpen back off the COVID-IL.
The offense hasn’t exploded since beating up on Minnesota pitching a couple weeks ago, but they’ve been mostly consistently acceptable, with 44 runs scored in 10 games. Not great, certainly, but not bad considering they’ve been missing Xander Bogaerts, Hunter Renfroe (who has since returned), Enrique Hernandez, Christian Arroyo, and Jarren Duran. The lineup yesterday included backup catcher Kevin Plawecki batting fifth, recent Brewers DFA Travis Shaw, minor league free agent Jack Lopez, and Triple-A shortstop Jonathan Araúz. Then, when Cora pinch hit for Lopez with Rafael Devers, he replaced Lopez at second base with Taylor Motter, a former Ray who was recently DFA’d by the Rockies. I’d put his offensive stats here but you don’t want to see them. He made a nice play at second though! Oh, and he walked! The good news was, at no point did the Red Sox have to put Quornelius Mung into the game.
The upshot of all this is, somehow, some way, the Red Sox are a half game back of the Yankees, who lost two of three to Baltimore, for the first Wild Card spot. Boston is also three up on Seattle for the second Wild Card spot. That’s a pretty good spot to be in with 23 games left to go. It’s not a slam dunk they get in, but even with this lineup they’re better than the Mariners. The Blue Jays are just four back though. They scare me more. It’s a wonder why that team isn’t in second place a few games behind the Rays.
But forget the Wild Card for a minute. Forget World Series, too. Derek Jeter used to say the Yankees’ season was a failure unless they won the World Series. That’s garbage. This, right now, right here, is the good stuff. These are the games that matter. We’ll worry about the playoffs later, but this team is fighting hard just to get there. They’re showing the spark and the resiliency that we saw from them back in May and June. But, if they can get healthy, this team might just be better than that. We’ll see, though. That’s the fun part.
Next up, Boston gets the Rays for three at home before heading off to Chicago for three against the White Sox. Those six games are Boston’s toughest competition left on the schedule. After that, it’s three in Seattle (a west coast road trip in September??), and a shot at stuffing the Mariners back down from whence they came. Then it’s back home for the last home stand of the season: eight games against Baltimore, the Mets, and the Yankees.
Chris Sale goes today. Enrique Hernandez might be back as well. Xander could be back shortly thereafter. These are the games we’ve waited all season for. These are the playoffs for the playoffs. I’m excited.
I HATE how they are conservative about promoting or at least testing prospects or minor leaguers if they are NOT in a covid-massacre! Now they are, and they are forced to use hundreds of modest or inexperienced players, or rookies, and surprise: the result is not so horrible! They even got Peakock instead of trusting our AAA-AA pitchers!!!
This WAS the week in which you turn up in a Jersey & look like you can "throw a bit" & you might find yourself batting 8th !!!!!!!