FORT MYERS, Fla. – The last time the Red Sox had a starting rotation that was better than average, they won the 2018 World Series.
In the three years since, their rotation has been 20th, 25th and 17th in ERA respectively, despite ranking 13th with a .521 profit percentage in that span.
The insult drives the bus to the Red Sox, who are in third place in the MLB with 5.2 runs per game on the same track. And with Trevor Story on his way to Boston to secure the lineup, the score should be no problem at Fenway Park this summer.
But the starting rotation remains a question mark. And with Chris Sale set in the foreseeable future as he waits for a broken rib to heal, the Red Sox are poised to start the season with a rotation that has much to prove.
“We have a bunch of guys,” said manager Alex Cora. “Guys who are like 6-foot-6, 6’5”, 6’4 “. It’s kind of like Old School Baseball. We talked about little guys who have fastballs in the zone; we don’t have those guys. We have great guys, very athletic, very consistent with everything we do.
There’s plenty of time between now and the opening day on April 7 for the Red Sox to change their plans, but as the moment unfolds during Grapefruit League action, the rotation looks like this: Nathan Eovaldi (6’2 “), Nick Pivetta (6) ‘5”, Tanner Houck (6’5 “), Michael Wacha (6’6”) and Rich Hill (6’5 “) piggybacking with Garrett Whitlock (6’5”).
It may be the highest rotation in the big leagues, but it’s more to the story.
After a top-five finish in the American League Cy Young mood, Eovaldi thinks expanding his repertoire to include more slides against left-handed batters will help him be even better in 2022.
Pivetta is coming off a career year, a dominant postseason and the Red Sox love his intensity and aggression in the strike zone, but after a few disappointing seasons in Philadelphia, he has a way to go before he is considered reliable.
Houck may have the highest top of the list. Breaking into the big leagues and immediately showing one of the game’s best sliders, he has a sky-high ceiling and should finally get a chance to prove himself after being roped in between the minors and majors in the last two years.
“We’re getting close to a final product,” said Cora of Houck, a first-round pick from the University of Missouri in 2017.
Behind the top three is where things get interesting.
Wacha, a first-round pick from Texas A&M in 2012, was a top prospect who came through the well-regarded cardinal system and looked dominant during his first major league seasons. But his career has been scrapped since then, and he now has three seasons in which he has a combined ERA of 5.11. The Red Sox signed him to a one-year contract worth $ 7 million.
“He will be OK, he will be good,” Cora said. “He’s 30. He’s still young. He’s still learning.”
Wacha’s fastball averaged 94 mph last year, but sat at 94-96 mph during his first spring start on Monday.
“I came a lot more prepared than I normally would for a regular spring workout,” he said.
Hill was great when he was on the moon, even though the 42-year-old is having his first 30-start season since 2007. funkiest breakball, he’s still effective after posting a 3.86 ERA between the Mets and Rays last year.
“Love the fact that he’s here, still strong,” Cora said. “He’s one of those people he plays for as long as he wants.”
Asked if it would be weird to manage a guy just four years younger than him, Cora said, “No, no, not really. They respect that line and the way we do things here. It helps to have such guys throughout the program.
And then there’s Whitlock, the talented Rule 5 pick who had a breakout rookie season last year and is stretched to throw more innings in 2022.
Sometime in the middle of the season, Sale and James Paxton will also be joining the group.
It’s a deeper staff than the Sox have had in years. But on paper, it’s not the best.
Taking the three-year average of all six pitchers from 2019 to 2021, they had a combined ERA of 4.21, which is even worse than the 4.04 ERA combined three-year average of the Red Sox ‘rotation in 2015, the Year Clay Buchholz made the “He’s the Ace” t-shirts.
The Sox rotation has not had an ERA below 4.49 since 2018, when their 3.77 mark ranked eighth and led them to a World Series title.
The Red Sox can hit. They can always strike.
Their starting rotation also has talent. It’s just one thing to put it all together.
“We have a great startup staff around us,” Pivetta said. “It’s just coming together as a unit and going out and competing every day.”
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