The Red Sox got beat 18-4 by the Blue Jays Sunday afternoon. It happens. (Well, actually, giving up eight home runs like they did has never happened any Sox team, but you get the point. Boston has, however, given up as many as 18 runs 38 times.)
Marwin Gonzalez came on and pitched, throwing 43 mph before mixing in 90 mph heaters. He was followed by fellow position player Christian Arroyo. Such late-inning aberrations usually pop up at least a few times over the course of a season.
No, this isn't about one semi-weird day. This is about what appears to be a pretty definitive fork in the road for these Red Sox.
Simply put, everybody knew this Red Sox team was going to sink or swim with a mystery machine that was its starting rotation. It wasn't complicated. If the group of unpredictables managed to become predictable in a positive way, this whole thing could work.
Yes, there would always be leaks in the boat. The bottom of the order. The ups and downs at first base. An occasional slump from the meat of the order. Finding a bridge to closer Matt Barnes. At one time or other, they have become part of the doubts of what many believed might be an overachieving team.
But none of it truly mattered. The only thing that was going to define this team was the starting pitching. And that's why we can not file this under just another reactionary moment in a season ripe with reaction.
“It’s OK. We need to do a better job, bottom line," said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. "We’ll talk about it and we’ll make adjustments. I know these guys are capable. It’s been a horrible week for us pitching wise. Obviously, we had some comebacks and all of that, but for us to keep going and stay where we are, we have to pitch. Like I said, obviously a bad week, but two good hitting teams, but that doesn’t mean anything. We’ve faced some good hitting teams before, and we did the job. So, it’s one of those that we’re grinding right now pitching wise."
How the Red Sox have been living life simply isn't sustainable, as is evident by American League standings that have now put them three games back out of first-place for the first time since the first three games of the season.
The Sox starters have a 12.00 ERA in their last six outings, allowing a .400 batting average and 1.261 OPS. They haven't gone as many as six innings since the series opener in New York on June 4.
This brings us to the possible explanation for the downturn.
So, is there anything to the notion that is hardly coincidental that the issues have coincided with Major League Baseball prioritizing taking away the sticky stuff from pitcher? Well, here were the reactions to that question after Martin Perez's 1 1/3-inning debacle against the Blue Jays ...
"I’m not a cheater pitcher," Perez said. "I’ve been around for a long time and I don’t use that kind of stuff. I just go out there and compete with what I have that day. I don’t put anything on my arm, I don’t put anything on my glove. Whoever did, it’s their problem. It’s not because we’ve not been doing good, not pitching good for three or four days, because of sticky things. No. It’s because we aren’t locating the pitches where we want it. If we go back again and throw the pitch where we want it, it’s going to be fine. But it’s not because we’ve been using sticking things. No way."
"I don't think so. I don't believe so," Cora noted. "Obviously the topic will be out there. Everyone will be looking at the scoreboard and who's pitching and if you give it up, then you were using something your last start. Before that, a lot of pitchers were giving it up. I know the league is doing a good job with the stuff and they're going to come down with a memo, but I don't think struggling has to do with stuff. Those guys are really good, too. We have made a lot of pitches right down the middle lately and they've taken advantage of them."
“I don’t think so," added Red Sox pitching coach Dave Bush. "We’ve talked about that from spring training on that they know what the rules are and it was an issue that actually came up in spring training 2020, when the MLB rules committee was coming around to different camps, and they talked about trying to get better at that about enforcing it. It’s no surprise. It’s something that has to be cleaned up across the game. We’ve talked to the guys from spring training on, we had another meeting last week. They know what’s going on. They know what the rules are and what they have to follow, and no, I don’t think it’s having any impact on us right now.”
The analytics tend to back up the Red Sox' assertion, with The Athletic taking an excellent deep-dive into whether or not Sox pitchers have seen a dramatic different in spin rate since the controversy first started brewing. (To read Chad Jennings' story, click here.)
Watch Perez pitch Sunday and most would come to the conclusion of Cora. When you throw pitches the like middle-of-the-plate, hit-off-a-tee changeup the lefty offered up on Teoscar Hernandez's first-inning home run, it's not going to work.
No, the real concern with this group should be the same one that percolated coming out of spring training - will they be pitching to the back of their baseball card?
Perez was one of the best starters in the American League through his first three starts in 2019 before the wheels fell off the wagon, landing him with a season-ending 5.12 ERA.
The ups and downs of Nathan Eovaldi. The previous issues facing Nick Pivetta during his journey to a big-league rotation. Garrett Richards' post-surgery inconsistencies. They have always been lingering. But fortunately for the Red Sox, each and every one of the narratives were pretty much pushed aside for the first two months.
Now comes the true test.
Even if a few of the starting pitching participants will spend the next few weeks figuring themselves out, the Red Sox desperately need to find some semblance of an anchor. A portion of this rotation has to become the fail-safe when to offering reliability.
Just five times this season Red Sox starters have gone seven innings. At this point in 2018 there were 16 such occasions. What they need is what Tampa Bay has in Tyler Glasnow, a guy who is going to be penciled in for seven innings (a point he has reached six times this season), while the rest of the staff is bobbing and weaving their way through the other four days.
Eduardo Rodriguez was supposed to be that guy. Right now, he is not. Instead there are legitimately five unknowns on a team desperate for some semblance of starting rotation certainty.
The Red Sox are 17-5 when their starters go at least six innings, and 34-19 when the total is a minimum of five frames. Coincidence? I think not.
Good offenses. Bad stretch. Whatever. The fact of the matter is that the Red Sox being their best versions of themselves is non-negotiable. That was the case on Opening Day, and nothing has changed.
