A requiem for Ryan Brasier, and other thoughts after a dispiriting Red Sox sweep
One of the last three holdouts from the Red Sox' 2018 World Series-winning team is now gone.
COMMENTARY
Three thoughts after a momentum-halting weekend at Fenway Park, the National League-worst Cardinals paying homage to the now-departed 76ers by stealing two games, then dominating the other:
Time to respond
The Red Sox have been swept three times this season. The Pirates did it in the opening homestand, and Boston promptly went to Detroit and hung 24 runs on the Tigers in three days.
The second followed that. Four straight losses at Tropicana Field to the then-unbeaten Rays, though a couple felt like winnable games. The response followed: Three straight home wins against the Angels and just one series loss (at Baltimore) between then and this weekend.
Now, third. Two one-run leads in the ninth squandered by Kenley Jansen, whose velocity was down and command was off before Willson Contreras goaded him into three working-too-fast violations, and an egg on Sunday. Into town come the Mariners before a San Diego-Angels-Arizona trip.
Seattle hits Fenway at 20-20 coming off their cathartic return to the playoffs. They’ve been sort of a bizarro Red Sox, with starters Luis Castillo, Logan Gilbert, and George Kirby all sporting sub-3.00 FIPs to cover for an offense with the fourth-worst OPS and second-most strikeouts. They’ve started nine guys at DH and managed a rousing .129/.217/.214.
Boston dodges Gilbert, at least, though he’s been the worst of their big three. And those struggling bats, from Julio Rodríguez and Teoscar Hernández to Cal Raleigh and Ty France, looked better over the weekend in Detroit.
It’ll be a test. The latest one.
Time for some concrete calls?
It seems a little funny to say just days after I gave credit to the Red Sox for not panicking following a tough start, but we’re at the quarter pole and a couple things are becoming clear.
Kiké Hernández might not be an everyday shortstop.
And Corey Kluber might not be an answer in the rotation.
Throwing error No. 7 and overall error No. 9, each MLB worsts, came during Saturday’s Jansen meltdown. In Hernández’s defense, he was trying to turn a lead-saving double play and wouldn’t have been able to get Alec Burleson at first with a cannon off Old Ironsides.
But we’re talking about nine errors in just 103 chances. In just 29 games. We don’t even have to get into the degree that errors aren’t a perfect measure of defensive prowess.
The Red Sox’s No. 1 option for the year at shortstop was Trevor Story, far from perfect itself. When he had elbow surgery in January, the team rolled the dice with Hernández and his 47 career starts in nine years. While none of the errors can be directly traced to a loss, that is the faintest of praise.
Kluber, meanwhile, was battered Sunday. Two no-doubt home runs of at least 425 feet, three other balls hit in excess of 104 miles per hour, and three more walks — his third time with at least that many in eight starts. Kluber had just three multi-walk games all last season, when he threw 164 innings.
In the not-too-distant future, the Red Sox rotation could be Chris Sale and James Paxton (who were each excellent against St. Louis), Brayan Bello, Garrett Whitlock (who goes for Worcester on Tuesday), and Tanner Houck. Maybe Kutter Crawford, if you’d rather.
Kluber was a decent idea, but not everyone can be Michael Wacha.
Bell tolls for Brasier
Since the end of the 2022 season, the Red Sox have turned over essentially half of their 40-man roster. Designated for assignment? Quite the list: Abraham Almonte, Eduard Bazardo, Jake Reed, Caleb Hamilton, Hoy Park, Jeter Downs, Eric Hosmer, Darwinzon Hernandez, Connor Seabold, Matt Barnes, Franklin German, Jake Faria, and Zack Littell. Franchy Cordero was nontendered. Plenty of others were released.
Ryan Brasier remained, the Red Sox clinging to better results and some mechanical refinements last September in hopes he could again be the pitcher he was in 2018.
Sunday night was it. Brasier threw 42 pitches, a 4-1 game turning 9-1 as he threw more pitches than he ever had in a regular-season game, and was told afterward he’d been designated for assignment. (Ostensibly to make room for now-healthy free-agent reliever Joely Rodríguez.)
“Obviously, no hard feelings . . . I know it’s a business. And things happen,” he told reporters. “But hopefully get picked up in a day or two and try to go win somewhere else.”
It is, to borrow from late commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti, a sad end to a sorry episode. Brasier departs charged with literally one quarter (17 of 68) of the earned runs charged to the bullpen this season. (Another 10 belong to Kaleb Ort, shuttled to Worcester two weeks ago.) The quality of contact against him was roughly as bad as it was a year ago, but the good walk and whiff rates that kept his flame alive were gone.
I will not deny you your exulting. I will merely remind we are talking about one of the last three members of the 2018 champions to still be here (alongside Chris Sale and Rafael Devers).
And Brasier was no sidecar. Arriving in July on the heels of a Triple-A All-Star nod, having fought back to the majors through Tommy John surgery and an ugly stint in Japan, he immediately threw gas, threw strikes, and got outs — a .171/.211/.270 line against in 34 regular-season appearances, then five holds and a half-dozen clean innings in October.
Already in his 30s, that was as good as it got. He was back in Triple A (albeit briefly) by July 2019, spent most of 2021 hurt (including taking a liner off the head while he was rehabbing in Fort Myers) before pitching well again in the playoffs, but was the “why is he still here” guy you remember since. And that’s just his non-Twitter ugliness.
Regardless, only 36 other pitchers have thrown in more regular-season Red Sox games than Brasier (222). Only five — owing in large part to the incredibly expanding playoffs — appeared in more postseason games, most of those pressure-loaded spots where Brasier did the job.
It was time to go. It was beyond time to go. But as scratch tickets go, and Brasier certainly was that when the Red Sox called him to Florida with spring training 2018 already underway, this one paid far better than most.
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