Perhaps Chaim Bloom and the Red Sox brass aren’t as urgent about the 2021 season as I am but make no mistake, like many, I’ve seen enough and I am. One week has passed since the Red Sox rather flaccid approach to the MLB trade deadline and as this week has limped by, solutions are required. Time to call Northeast Men’s Clinic or better yet, Red Sox Triple A affiliate, the WooSox.
Building for sustained success is a smart thing. The Red Sox approach to building for now and the future is a good thing. However, this team, right now and particularly before last week’s trade deadline was primed for a legitimate World Series push. The combination of a tough weekend series in Tampa Bay and the still unripe and undelivered fruit that we will hopefully soon know as Kyle Schwarber, has left the Red Sox and their fans hanging in the balance. Meanwhile, team performance is at its season’s worst and eight of the next eleven games are against the AL East iron (the Blue Jays, Rays then the recently reborn Yankees).
Bad timing all around.
In desperate need of a youthful injection, help is on the way. With a doubleheader in Toronto on the schedule for Saturday, young stud Tanner Houck is on track to start for the needy Red Sox in one of those games. Here’s an idea, with Red Sox starters of late struggling to get through four innings, make the Red Sox favorite temp a full-time hire. If the Red Sox want to make the playoffs and actually compete in them like many think they can, then it’s time to take the training wheels off Houck and keep him in the show.
I’ve seen enough of this kid to know he’s the real deal. Haven’t you? I don’t think Houck is the real deal. He’s the real deal. Period hard stop. And here’s the real deal for the Red Sox, you need his help and you need it right now. As good as the Red Sox bullpen is (and it is), burdening them consistently with four to five innings of work every night isn’t going to get them to the promised land. If they do make the postseason at that pace, they’ll fall flat just in time to land on the finish line, just as the fun is supposed to start.
So let’s rather have some fun now, enjoy the ride and watch the Red Sox most exciting starter actually start ... all the time ... in the big leagues.
Hauck has proven he can get outs at the Major League level with relative ease. He can moonwalk through five innings. I’m willing to bet that if the Red Sox would let him, he could give them 100 pitches and six plus innings on a consistent basis.
If the Red Sox keep Houck in Boston where he both belongs and is needed, they can reap the benefits of as many as 10 Houck starts following Saturday, forecasting a start every five days. Based on what we’ve seen so far, 11 Tanner Houck starts sounds like good medicine to me.
Time for the training wheels to come off and for the Red Sox to get their mojo back.
