Open enrollment

So, this is starting well.

I know. I get the fact that it’s only spring training and that only a uninformed dunce puts any stock into what a player does on March 8. Keith Foulke’s ghastly spring in 2004 (15.00 ERA) is a prime example, as the closer went on to save 32 games for Boston and was arguably the team’s postseason MVP.

But still, the pitchers competing to make up the 2007 Red Sox bullpen aren’t exactly spreading ease and comfort with what they’ve shown out of the gate here.

Forget figuring out who’s going to be the closer. At this point it’s likely more imperative to figure out who’s even competent enough to be on the roster.
It’s just a handful of games, but here’s how the widely assumed top contenders have fared so far in spring tuneup action:
Manny Delcarmen: Surrendered six hits and five runs over 2 2/3 innings — 16.87 ERA.
Brendan Donnelly: Surrendered five hits and five runs over 3 2/3 innings — 12.27 ERA.
Joel Pineiro: Surrendered six hits, three walks, and five runs over 3 1/3 innings — 10.80 ERA
Devern Hansack: Surrendered three hits and two runs over 1 2/3 innings — 10.80 ERA.
Julian Tavarez: Surrendered five hits and four runs over four innings — 6.75 ERA.
Ugh.
After a one-inning, dominant stint last week, Donnelly had some jumping the gun a wee bit too much proclaiming that he would be the closer. Donnelly was terrible yesterday, allowing four runs to the Mets in just 2/3 of an inning. And Pineiro won’t be getting any realistic shot at the closer’s role as long as he passes out bases on balls at the rate of one per inning.
If this were an aberration, say David Ortiz hitting just one homer in a month, the panic might subside a little bit. But it’s not like the bullpen has been a source of strength for Theo Epstein. It is in fact his Achilles’ heel, an aspect of the team that has been a crapshoot from year-to-year, which might explain why he decided to go with the “throw it together and see what sticks” theory for 2007.
It should be noted that guys like Hideki Okajima, J.C. Romero, David Pauley, Javier Lopez, and Craig Breslow have all looked solid thus far, but the likelihood is that maybe one or two of those guys will be on the roster. The meat of the bullpen is undoubtedly going to go to the big money guys, no matter how much better Kyle Snyder looks than Tavarez this month.
Thus far this spring, Red Sox pitching has allowed 42 earned runs to the opposition (in “official” spring games), and 40 of them have been surrendered by relievers.
If there were an antidote of sorts for the annual bullpen anxiety, it would be how great the starting pitching has looked. Blogging ace Curt Schilling and veteran knuckler Tim Wakefield have each allowed just a run each over 10 1/3 combined innings. Jonathan Papelbon has given up just one hit with eight strikeouts over five innings, Josh Beckett has allowed three in his three innings, and Daisuke Matsuzaka has given up two hits in three official innings.
The theories seem more prophetic every day. The Red Sox could indeed have the best starting staff on the planet, a modern day Fab Five. What good will it do them though if their bullpen stinks? You think Matsuzaka won’t even come close to the 15 complete games he had last year with the Seibu Lions? Wait until he translates what the sight of the right field door opening means. He’s liable to stay on that mound until Terry Francona has Dave Mellor drag him off with a rake.
Right now, the Red Sox aren’t terming it a bullpen by committee (such a term in this city is on par with blasphemy). In reality though, its current makeup makes it what some might refer to as a committee bullpen. See, doesn’t that sound better? This is the part where you ask how much Eric Gagne might have cost over the winter.
The closer, of course, remains a thorny issue, at least until Papelbon’s shoulder miraculously is able to take on the daily workload. Those Pineiro-as-closer thoughts you’ve been having? As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Jim Moore, who watched Pinero toil with the Mariners over the past few years put it, “Raise your hand if you think Joel Pineiro can be an effective closer for the Boston Red Sox. That’s what I thought…Wait a minute, there’s one hand up, 3,000 miles away, and it belongs to Theo Epstein.”
Pineiro has one career save.
“Maybe I was too harsh,” Moore admits about critical columns he wrote last season about Pineiro. “But I think the Mariners paid him $6.3 million to occasionally get people out, and he rarely did.”
What an endorsement. By the sounds of it, he’ll fit right in.
We’re obviously early in the process, which is probably why you’re apt to find no panic in the streets and burbs of New England. But the inadequate nature of the bullpen arms over the past four seasons has left us all worried about repeating history. After all, how many of these guys are going to be the next Chad Fox, Mike Remlinger, or Rudy Seanez? And is this a bad time to remind you that Doug Mirabelli continues to stand as a remembrance that Cla Meredith set a Padres record for consecutive scoreless innings last year?
As for the Papelbon possibility, well, depending on how Jon Lester performs the rest of this spring, his return to the closer’s role could happen at some point this season if the closer spot remains a conundrum. Which would at least be one solution to the multiplying relief problems the Red Sox face.
If he had four more arms, that’d be even better.