The Red Sox’ rotation has a new ace, but plenty of familiar question marks
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COMMENTARY
It was the day after last year’s Major League Baseball trading deadline when Red Sox starting pitcher Joe Kelly won his first game since June 6. It was an 11-7 win over the Tampa Bay Rays that was nearly two months in the making.
Kelly wasn’t great that day, allowing nine hits and five runs over five innings of work. He walked only one, and struck out five in running his record to a disappointing 3-6. The win followed a four-start stint at Triple-A Pawtucket, where the Red Sox optioned Kelly after he posted a 5.40 ERA over his first 11 starts of the 2015 season.
August and September, with the Red Sox already destined for another last-place finish, were different stories, of course, as Kelly went 7-0 over his final eight starts with a 2.35 ERA. He was one of only two major league pitchers to go 6-0 in the month of August.
The other was eventual National League Cy Young Award winner Jake Arrieta.
While that’s the closest that the 27-year-old Kelly would come to the honor since proclaiming in jest that he felt he was in line for a Cy-worthy season upon arriving at Sox camp last spring, the way the righty dropped the mic on what was otherwise a disappointing season serves as either a beacon of promise for 2016 or a mirage.
The same can be said for the Red Sox starting staff as a whole.
The fact that Kelly, who is the only pitcher not to have reported to Fort Myers as of yet in the wake of birth of his new son, will go from one of manager John Farrell’s “five No. 1’s’’ in 2015 to a guy fighting for the fifth spot in the starting rotation a year later is encouraging though. Last spring, Kelly came out of camp officially as Boston’s No. 5 guy, but pitched like the team’s ace through his first two contests, during which had a 2.13 ERA. It was 6.39 from that point until his demotion in June.
Of course, the guys in front of him last season were not special enough to warrant the status of anything more than the fifth spot in the rotation. Wade Miley and Justin Masterson were 3-4 guys by default. Clay Buchholz, the opening day “ace’’ was yet again mediocre and sidelined by injury. Rick Porcello’s first season in Boston was a failure, a 9-15, 4.92 ERA preview of the $82.5-million contract extension that former general manager Ben Cherington handed him before even throwing a pitch for the team. Collectively, the starting staff had a 4.39 ERA, third-worst in the American League. And that’s counting Kelly’s sprint to the finish and the addition of Eduardo Rodriguez, who burst on the scene with a 10-6 rookie campaign.
A year later we’re supposed to believe the Red Sox have one of the best pitching staffs in all of baseball?
Granted, such optimism reflects the impact that an ace — imagine that, an actual ace! — like David Price can have on a starting staff, from top to bottom. He pushes a question mark like Kelly toward the bullpen (where his fastball would probably be a more effective weapon). Thinking of Buchholz as a No. 3 causes a little less of a headache than imagining that he can be a No. 1. The possibility that 22-year-old Rodriguez can step up and pitch like a No. 2 is intriguing and an exciting development to watch unfold. Porcello, a 15-game-winner only two seasons ago, is only 27, and now dips to the No. 4 role that he’s more suited for, despite his paycheck.
In reality, the rotation remains a crapshoot behind Price. It’s a broken down Volvo that had an expensive, new engine installed with the hope that it can go another 100,000 miles.
Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombroski (you too, Mike Hazen) did yeoman’s work in rebuilding and deepening one of the game’s worst bullpens during the offseason with the additions of Craig Kimbrel and Carson Smith. But he did little more to fix the rotation beyond tossing $217 million at Price. Whatever your stance on the averageness of Miley, he’s consistently healthy, having made 32 starts in each of his four full seasons in the big leagues. He came 6 1/3 innings shy of 200 for the season in 2015. Porcello was second on the team with 172. Trading him to the Seattle Mariners for Smith was a boon for the bullpen, but Miley as a No. 5 guy in this rotation would be a little more settling.
Price has only twice pitched fewer than 200 innings over his eight-year career, so it’s not like Dombrowski failed to break even there. But Porcello has pitched 200 innings just once in his career. The young Rodriguez will be babied and won’t come close to such a number. Buchholz’ career-high was 189 1/3 in the lost season of 2012. This could be the year though, right?
“I think Clay Buchholz will get to 200,’’ Farrell said during baseball’s Winter Meetings last December. “I think two years ago it was 178, (it was 170) which is probably the highest he’s thrown. I think he’s capable of that.’’
Spoiler: He’s not.
Kelly’s 134 1/3 innings last season were a career-high, but it’s not like anyone is exactly clamoring for him to reach the two-century mark. He’s just a pitcher lurking on the periphery who could surprise as a valuable asset in 2016.
Not a Cy Young surprise, of course. If that award is going to anyone in Boston it’s to Kelly’s new teammate, the guy who finished second in voting for the award last season split between Detroit and Toronto.
At least Kelly is getting ever closer to that elusive plaque, one way or another.
Contact Eric Wilbur at: [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @GlobeEricWilbur and Facebook www.facebook.com/GlobeEricWilbur
What if the Red Sox were all homegrown?
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