Sox Wallow in Baseball Purgatory

Boston clearly hasn’t be granted absolution from the baseball gods as they remain in limbo while completing their tour through Minneapolis. Purgatory, as we know it, is that state of suffering before being cleansed of all our indiscretions.  Once deemed worthy, we then make the ascent to a higher condition of existential harmony. In baseball, the .500 mark is as good a descriptor of this notion as I can think of – not entirely beyond redemption but also not yet ready to be considered an upper echelon factor. 

The Red Sox have been chasing this mark of mediocrity all spring. They finally realized it during the Texas series on May 10^th for the first time since April 4^th. The furthest they have been able to travel past .500 – one measily game . They were then unceremoniously kicked back to the reset button by the Twins in their series opener at Target Field. They once again stuck their head above the .500 mark after a win in the sandwich game only to be slapped back once again as they now sit at 20-20. During the mid-point of April, Boston was a season high four games below .500 after dropping an opening series game in chilly Chicago, when rookie shortstop Xander Bogaerts provided the rare, but always gut-wrenching, throwaway walk off loss. They spent one day in first place on April 3^rd as Felix Doubront celebrated his first win of the year beating Baltimore to send Boston to a 2-1 record.

Of course, there are many reasons why the Sox have been derailed from their quest to rid themselves of the tag of “underachievers”. One of the main contributors to their sluggish start can be uncovered within the starting rotation. The trio of Felix Doubront, Clay Buchholz, and to a lesser extent, Jake Peavy has not been able to galvanize the notion that Boston has one of the best rotations in baseball. That was to be the strength coming into the 2014 season, but as we ramp things up and hit the quarter pole of the campaign, this simply hasn’t been the case. Ironically, all three are slated for a start in Minnesota so what better time to probe into their performance .

Let’s look at these three cumulatively first. Coming into the second game of the Twins’ series, all of these men have combined to log 119.2 innings and have allowed 67 earned runs. That is a 5.08 ERA. A whopping 53 walks have been issued with the lion’s share belonging to Jake Peavy with 27 free passes. Control issues have hampered all three with Doubront and Buchholz leading the team in wild pitched with 4 apiece, and the collective record here is 4-7 in 22 games started.

From an AL East perspective, let’s take a peek around the division with respect to each team’s third, fourth and fifth starters. Due to injuries, I will have to lump in the stats of those now on the DL into my calculations to make a fair comparison to Boston as none of the Red Sox starting 5 have been injured to date. The Jays lead in this area with a 11-5 record and a sparkling 3.83 ERA thanks to the efforts of #3 man Mark Buehrle. The Yankees pull into second with a 10-5 mark and a 4.03 ERA which again speaks to a strong #3 chucker named Masahiro Tanaka. Baltimore ranks third with a 6-8 mark and a 4.22 ERA, and in fourth come the injury riddled Rays with a 7-10 record to go along with a 4.43 ERA. Boston is in the cellar by a good half a run per game.

Really, if New York and Toronto’s top two starters were firing on all cylinders, they would be a lot further ahead at this point of the year. However, C.C . Sabathia is clearly a shadow of himself both literally and statistically, and Toronto’s Drew Hutchison has faltered as a solid number two to R.A. Dickey so far. Thankfully for Boston, there is standing room only in the .500 purgatory that has become the AL East.

Looking more closely at Boston’s situation, we’ll start with Doubront.  It had been well over a month since he’d won a game until his stellar outing in game two of the Minnesota series. He’s failed to make it past the third inning twice and has only pitched into the seventh twice in seven starts. Felix was the #3 man coming out of camp and when you put his numbers up against the third man of Toronto and New York, it’s unsettling to say the least. He now has four quality starts, but 4 of 8 chances for wins doesn’t really cut it in his current rotation position. Interestingly, Farrell moved Peavy into the # 3 slot for this series, so clearly, he realizes he needs more from this spot in the rotation as well.

Clay Buchholz hasn’t been the same since his injury last year and it shows. Once thought to be a top of the rotation guy, his stock is steadily declining. He never won his first game until April 26^th and he is sporting a gaudy 6.44 ERA. The good news is that when Clay has been good, he has been very good showing flashes of 2013 with 4 quality starts and winning two of them. But when he’s bad he’s been horrid. In two starts against Texas and Milwaukee, he lasted only 8.2 innings combined and gave up 23 hits. Even worse, first place Baltimore lampooned him for 7 hits and 6 runs in only 2.1 innings. He did give Boston a chance to win the finale against the Twins but was still clubbed for 10 hits in six innings. At one point, he walked three in a row as he has been struggling to find his pitches.

As for Peavy, well he’s danced the tightrope for much of this early 2014 season. He’s given up a homer and averaged about 4 walks in each of his starts to date. He’s managed to log 6 quality starts in his 8 outings, but was exposed in Minnesota as the walks and gopher ball bit him hard. He surrendered 6 runs in his shortest outing of the year in the opener of the Twins’ series. If he doesn’t cut down on the walks, that long ball will end up costing him as 7 of the eight homers he allowed were solo shots. Having said all of that, if Boston had have supplied some offensive support to Peavy’s cause, he would be much better than his current record of 1-1.

However, it’s not all bad. These fellows have time to turn things around, and Doubront took one step forward with a fine start in the second game against the Twins allowing only 1 run in 6 plus innings. You have to think we haven’t seen the best of Buchholz yet, and if Peavy can make a few adjustments they could very well vault the Sox from their current crossroads. Last year, this trio was a combined 27 -8 for a 3.14 ERA thanks largely in part to a fantastic partial season from Buchholz. If Boston can simply cut down a run per inning from their current pace, that would be a huge bonus.

Only time will tell if this threesome can become a holy trinity, aiding Boston in escaping baseball’s purgatory, or a threefold imperfection of biblical proportions.