Red Sox @ Angels Game Thread/ 22nd-24th May 2023

Alex Cora, Red Sox must make another cut from starting rotation very soon
Published: May. 21, 2023, 8:29 p.m.

By Christopher Smith | csmith@masslive.com
SAN DIEGO — Garrett Whitlock (right elbow ulnar neuritis) tossed 4 ⅔ scoreless innings in a rehab game for Triple-A Worcester on Sunday. The Red Sox will activate him from the 15-day injured list Saturday to start against Arizona.

That means another cut is coming really soon but not immediately.

Manager Alex Cora and chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom chose to demote Nick Pivetta to the bullpen Wednesday when the Red Sox returned to a five-man rotation after a few weeks of using six starters.


Corey Kluber, who lasted only 2 ⅓ innings in Boston’s 7-0 loss to the Padres on Sunday at Petco Park, could be the next starter cut from the rotation with Whitlock returning. But the two-time AL Cy Young winner will make his next start Sunday in Arizona, Cora confirmed after Sunday’s game.


Will the Red Sox use a six-man roster for the foreseeable future?

“For the foreseeable week,” Cora replied.

That means all six starters will receive their next turn through.

Tanner Houck will start Monday when Boston opens a three-game series in Anaheim. Brayan Bello will pitch Tuesday and James Paxton will pitch Wednesday. Chris Sale will start the first game of a three-game series in Arizona on Friday. He will be followed by Whitlock on Saturday and Kluber on Sunday.

Then it’s decision time.

Kluber’s control issues are a mystery. He led the league with the fewest walks per nine innings (1.2) last year. He walked two or more batters in only three of his 31 starts.


But the veteran right-hander (2-6, 6.26 ERA) has walked multiple hitters in five of his nine starts this season. He walked three batters in the first inning Sunday, including forcing in a run with a bases loaded free pass.

“That not him,” Cora said. “We’ve been battling with this early in the season. Something we’re trying to correct. But today the walks put him in a bad spot.”

Could it be mechanics? Or what might be leading to the poor control?

“If I knew, put it in a bottle, drink it and throw strikes over there, to be honest with you,” Cora said. “We’re working hard with him because we know when he’s around the zone, it’s tough to hit.”

Kluber said it’s frustrating for him and everybody else.

“Just doing a poor job of finding the correct adjustment to make,” Kluber said.

“Trying to work through different things, adjustments we’ve talked about in between starts and in the past,” he added. “Just can’t find one to click right now.”

A quality Red Sox rotation has revealed itself, and it’s time to run with it
The Red Sox do miss old friends Michael Wacha and Nate Eovaldi, but they've got the rotation of the future in place.



By Jon Couture
May 22, 2023 | 10:32 AM

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Xander Bogaerts went 0 for 11 this weekend at Petco Park, and his Padres looked every bit the offenseless mess they’ve been even in winning Sunday’s series finale. The Red Sox won the other two behind new face of the franchise Rafael Devers and renewed face of the rotation Chris Sale, and sit five games clear of the big spenders after seven-odd weeks.

Good enough. Certainly better than what followed it on Sunday.

But after Michael Wacha did what Bogaerts didn’t, let’s muse a little bit about the rotation that got away, and whether we should care all that much.

The six shutout innings the departed righty threw at the Red Sox dropped his May ERA to 0.36 — that’s one earned run in four starts and 25 innings. It’s a run as easy to miss as Wacha’s changeup, which got whiffs on essentially half (10 of 22) of Boston’s swings at it.

The fastball’s down to 92 miles per hour, but batters have done little with it. The changeup’s still always coming, but it remains one of the better ones in the game. A year after he went 11-2 with a 3.32 ERA despite a bottom quarter strikeout rate and a batting average on balls in play well below league average, Wacha again might be the best pitcher on his staff.

How? Beats me. Beats baseball, too, which literally didn’t buy Wacha’s 2022 in Boston. He sat in free agency until mid-February, and the four-year deal he got from San Diego was to some degree another prove-it one: $7.5 million between salary and signing bonus this year, and then either a two-year club option at $16M per or a three-year player option at a shade more than $6M each.

And yet, here he sits among the following:

Nate Eovaldi — His shutout streak ended Wednesday at 29 2/3 innings, but Eovaldi sits squarely in the mix among the best in the American League. A 2.83 ERA with 61 strikeouts against 10 walks in 60-plus innings means unlike teammate Jacob deGrom, he’s playing to the high-level free-agent deal he signed.

Eduardo Rodriguez — If expected ERA is your thing (or even if it isn’t), Eovaldi sits sixth, one spot behind the Tigers’ ace. The strikeout rate’s a little lower, and the walk rate’s a little higher, but E-Rod’s 2.06 ERA is fourth-best in the AL because he’s drawing some of the weakest contact in baseball. Teammates rave about his command, both of himself and the zone, a happy turnaround after he disappeared last summer for personal reasons.

Rich Hill — At 43, Milton’s own is continuing to handle his business, throwing six shutout innings in Detroit last week and with only one really ugly start in his nine with Pittsburgh. The Pirates are in a tailspin, but Hill’s 3.80 ERA and 4.62 FIP would slot right in the middle of the rotation he left. (Even if his four wins are against Colorado, Cincinnati, Washington, and the Tigers, which isn’t exactly AL East-level competition.)

Martin Pérez — Yes, we’re stretching, because exactly zero people saw Pérez turning into an All-Star last season in Texas. Regardless, even his reversion closer to his mean has him with a reasonable 4.01 ERA despite the worst hit rate (11.1 per nine innings) among ERA-qualified pitchers.

This, of course, leads us to Corey Kluber, the arm largely here in their place and the one whose useful time in the rotation feels at an end.

Facing the aforementioned mess of a lineup that the Padres are at the moment, Kluber walked three of the first five men he faced Sunday, gifting San Diego a run without a hit before hung a lollipop that scored everyone else he put on base.

“Command was off. That’s something that’s not him,” manager Alex Cora told reporters after Kluber gave him the same 2 1/3 innings that ex-starter Nick Pivetta did in relief. “We’ve been battling with this early in the season. It’s something we’ve tried to correct, but today, the walks put him in a bad spot.”

Cora essentially committed to a six-man rotation for the rest of the west coast trip: Tanner Houck, Brayan Bello, and James Paxton against the Angels, and Sale, the returning Garrett Whitlock, and Kluber at Arizona.

It has the feel of a last, last chance for the 37-year-old in Boston, here on a one-year, $10 million contract after years of dalliances.

“I think that there’s probably some getting in my own way, trying to make too many adjustments,” Kluber told reporters. “And then you try a balancing act of finding the right one. I think it boils down to doing a better job of figuring out how to do it.”

So, to the perpetual question at hand. How badly did the Red Sox screw this all up? Am I allowed to say not enough for it to really matter?

At least not yet.

They’ve lost six of Kluber’s nine starts, with Sunday the third time he’s failed to finish the fifth. It hasn’t worked, and it seems unlikely to. But it has not, surprisingly, derailed anything. These Red Sox are outperforming thanks to their offense and an overperforming bullpen, and they’re right in the mediocre mix as the American League begins to coalesce a little bit.

Last week, they resisted the urge to ping-pong Houck or Bello as they’ve done previously and instead bounced Pivetta, a pitcher whose ceiling is clear. Want to give Kluber one last shot? Sure.

Beyond him, they have at hand the rotation they were likely thinking about when they let all those above names go. It’s time to run with it.

Sale, Paxton, Bello, Houck, Whitlock. Mix in some of the depth names, be they Kutter Crawford or Josh Winckowski, if you’d like. But this is what they wanted. They’ve come to a place where it makes sense, both in a best choice for their present and a best choice for their future.

As with most plans like this, they’re probably going to get a little more credit for things working out than they deserve. And yes, they’d probably be a couple games better with a little more outlay by Bloom and the front office this winter.

No matter. This is the plan they chose, and it’s high time to see what it can really do.

After all, wasn’t that the point in choosing it?

It's a good problem to have, and this also helps to lengthen and strengthen our pen.  I'm still wavering on whether Whitlock should be in the rotation or the pen.  

On a different note, I really dislike west coast games.  Let's win another series.

Houck 'outstanding,' will continue to start for Sox
2:57 AM ADT
Ian Browne

Ian Browne
@ianmbrowne



ANAHEIM -- Tanner Houck’s most satisfying performance of 2023 came on Monday night at Angel Stadium, and included many elements for the Red Sox to feel good about regarding the righty’s progress.

The only thing lacking was a win, but that had little to do with the 26-year-old Houck, who fired six strong innings, allowing three hits and one run while walking two and striking out eight.

The Red Sox, lacking their usual firepower for the second straight day, lost 2-1, the decisive run coming on Mickey Moniak’s solo homer to right off Kutter Crawford in the bottom of the eighth.

Houck, however, was the storyline for Boston.

Here are some takeaways from his outing.

1) Second, third times through the order
The narrative coming into this start was Houck’s dominant numbers the first time through the order (.109/.194/.125 slash line through eight starts) compared to his rough numbers the second (.369/.408/.523) and third (.313/.361/.656) times through.

In this one, the only run Houck gave up was in the bottom of the second. But even that was a success story of sorts, as Houck escaped a bases-loaded jam by striking out Mike Trout.

“Got into trouble early,” said Houck. “Was kind of fighting my delivery the whole time. But I focused on it and was having good conversations with [pitching coach Dave Bush] in between innings and made some adjustments.”

Backed by those adjustments, the Angels went 2-for-14 against him the second and third times through. Both hits were singles.

“It’s learning, man. This is the big leagues. Not everybody can do that [well],” manager Alex Cora said of going through an order more than once. “He’s going to learn how to do it. I think his stuff, like we talked before the game, it’s the same stuff. It's just a matter of learning and where to go with pitches and all that, and little by little, he's going to be doing that consistently.”

2) Say hello to Mr. Splitty
For years, Houck has talked about trying to develop the splitter as a go-to pitch, particularly against lefties. Monday night seemed to be a breakthrough.

According to Baseball Savant, Houck got 11 swings and six whiffs out of the 16 splitters he threw.

“I’ve worked on that pitch for three or four years now,” said Houck. “Really pushing the envelope. I’m glad I mixed it in a little bit earlier tonight. I felt pretty confident with it. It’s one of those pitches where I have continued to work and continued to push myself on that. So any time you have success, it’s a good feeling.”
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Houck mixed in the splitter while relying most on his best pitch -- the slider. Of Houck’s 83 pitches, 34 were sliders. He got seven of his 17 whiffs on that pitch.

“He did an outstanding job,” said Cora. “Changing speeds, using his slider, good fastball, too. It was a good one for him.”

3) The neutralizing of Trout, Ohtani
The highlight of Houck’s outing was the way he mowed through two of the most impactful hitters in the game -- Trout and Shohei Ohtani.

“Obviously, two of the best hitters in the game. Go out there and treat them like anybody else,” said Houck. “Get strike one and strike two. Get in advantage counts and that’s all you can really do. It worked out in my favor.”

Ohtani did work a walk in the first inning while Houck was battling his mechanics. But Houck rebounded by striking him out the next two times -- first on a splitter and then on a slider.

Trout struck out in his first two at-bats, with the one to end the second coming on a slider. In their final faceoff, Houck induced a 73 mph grounder to second from Trout.

4) What’s next? Another start
Though competition is again brewing in Boston’s rotation with Garrett Whitlock getting activated for a start on Saturday in Arizona, it’s clear that Houck won’t be coming out of the rotation -- not after a performance like this one.

“We talked about it in Spring Training. He’s going to pitch a lot of innings,” Cora said. “If it was [as] a reliever, a starter, we said he was going to pitch a lot of innings. Right now, he’s one of our best starters, forget the numbers. You look up and you see a five [ERA] and you’re like, ‘Nah, that’s not him.’ So I'm glad that he pitched well against them tonight. And now, we'll get ready for the next one.”

Tanner Houck strikes out 8 but Red Sox lose to Angels on Monday

Published: May. 22, 2023, 11:43 p.m.

By

Christopher Smith | csmith@masslive.com

ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Red Sox will cut one of their pitchers from the starting rotation next week with Garrett Whitlock returning from the 15-day injured list Saturday.

Tanner Houck made a strong case Monday why he should keep his job as a starter and not be demoted to the bullpen.

Houck went 6 strong innings in the Red Sox’s 2-1 loss to the Angels at Anaheim Stadium.

Mickey Moniak’s 401-foot solo home run off reliever Kutter Crawford in the bottom of the eighth put the Angels ahead.

The righty allowed just one run, three hits and two walks while striking out eight.

Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani went a combined 0-for-5 with four strikeouts against Houck.

Houck used his slider the most of all his pitches, throwing it 34 times and getting seven whiffs with it. He mixed in 16 splitters (six whiffs), 14 cutters (two whiffs), 13 sinkers (two whiffs) and six four-seam fastballs, per Baseball Savant.

The Angels took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning.

The Red Sox tied it 1-1 in the sixth when Connor Wong doubled and then scored on Masataka Yoshida’s RBI single.