As many expected coming into the season, the Red Sox rotation started off 2015 looking like a mess. For the first few weeks of the year, it wasn’t a question of if the pitching staff would be hit around, it was a matter of how it would be done. Over the last six weeks or so, however, this looks like a completely different unit. It’s certainly not a world-beating group of pitchers, but they’ve improved significantly almost across the board. Yet the unspectacular names from the beginning of the season have largely remained the same. Can we trust them all moving forward, or are some going to revert back to their April-selves?
Clay Buchholz
Arguably the most enigmatic pitcher in the league, Buchholz’s performance has always come down to health. Even in his horrid 2014, he was never completely healthy. This season, that doesn’t appear to be an issue, and he looks like the Good Clay Buchholz. Although his 4.07 ERA doesn’t paint that picture, the rest of his numbers do. He’s striking out opponents at a career-best rate leading to a 2.86 FIP, the 15th best mark in baseball among pitchers with at least 50 innings. On top of that, he’s sporting a 3.35 DRA (ranked 45th) and an 86 cFIP (tied for 21st). For the most part, he looks every bit as good as he did back in 2013. Of course, even when he’s healthy Buchholz is prone to the occasional blow-up start. That’s just the pitcher he is, and it’s what’s holding him back from being a truly great arm. With that being said, there’s no reason to doubt that Buchholz will be a strong presence in this rotation for the rest of the season provided he stays healthy.
Rick Porcello
Before the season started, Porcello was the odds-on favorite to become the de facto staff ace. Although he didn’t possess the same sort of upside as Buchholz, he did have the consistency this rotation badly needed. Things haven’t exactly gone according the plan, as he’s been remarkably inconsistent in 2015. His 5.01 ERA, 4.42 FIP, 4.68 DRA and 113 cFIP tell a troubling story to be sure, but there’s some reason to be optimistic about his future. More than anything else, home runs have destroyed Porcello in 2015. He’s already allowed 11 long balls over his first 70 innings for a rate of 1.4 every nine frames. A big reason for this is a change in his approach. He’s pitching for more strikeouts, and in turn throwing more hittable pitches. The good news is he turned a corner with those issues last time out. If he can continue that trend, he should be a serviceable member of the rotation for the rest of the year, though it’s far from a guarantee at this point.
Wade Miley
Like Porcello, Miley began the year looking like one of the worst pitchers in baseball. When April ended, he was sporting a 8.62 ERA and making the Red Sox think twice about the three-year extension they signed him to before the season. Since then, however, he’s looked much more like a solid mid-rotation arm. Arbitrary endpoints be damned, he’s pitched to a 3.33 ERA with a 29/10 K/BB ratio in 46 innings since the start of May. In fact, his full-season 3.70 FIP and 3.55 DRA both point to him being a solid contributor in 2015. The key to his turnaround has been newfound control. While he walked 11 batters in his 15.2 innings, he’s allowed free passes to just 10 in his last 46 innings and has more than one walk in just two of his last seven outings. Miley’s ceiling doesn’t appear to be very high, but if he can limit his walks, there’s no reason to expect he can’t be a solid mid rotation contributor for the rest of the year.
Eduardo Rodriguez
Along with Buchholz, this is the spot in the rotation to look for top-of-the-rotation ceiling. Over his first three starts, #Ed is living up to the hype. Rodriguez has thrown 20.2 innings in his major-league career and he’s posted a minuscule 0.44 ERA. Sure, there is some small sample noise involved here, but his strikeout-an-inning rate and 2.86 FIP are proof enough that he’s been outstanding in these first three starts. With that being said, it would be foolish to expect this for the rest of the year. Major-league hitters are really good at their jobs, and eventually they’ll make the adjustments to put up a crooked number or two off him. The good news is we saw how well he can deal with adversity on Tuesday night, as #Ed was still able to throw six shutout innings when he didn’t have his best stuff on that night in Baltimore. It’s still too early to know exactly what to expect from him in 2015, but he has certainly shown the potential and the stuff to be the second best arm in this group after Buchholz.
Joe Kelly
While the rotation has looked better over the last month or so, Kelly still hasn’t been able to put it all together. Although his stuff is as good as it’s ever been, he remains unable to harness it. His command is still lacking, leading to seven homers in 60 innings and a hit for every inning he’s pitched. The one positive note is DRA and cFIP still think he can be around average, as he has 3.64 and 104 marks, respectively. However, he’s allowed at least five runs in about half of his starts, and the Red Sox can’t wait around for him to figure it out as they fall further and further from playoff contention. If anyone is going to lose their rotation spot anytime soon, it’s going to be Kelly.
The Others
Beyond those five, there are a few other members of starting depth the Red Sox have at their disposal. Steven Wright may very well take Kelly’s rotation spot should the latter falter one or two more times. The knuckleballer will probably put up slightly below-average numbers, but he will provide the sort of dependability and inning-eating that can’t be guaranteed with Kelly.
Justin Masterson is getting closer to being ready to return to Boston. Given how poorly he pitched to start the year and how unspectacular his rehab has been, it’s hard to see him back in the rotation. Even the bullpen could be out of the question, as his stuff was so bad before the injury that playing it up in short stints likely still wouldn’t be enough to get major-league hitters out.
Then, there’s Brian Johnson and Henry Owens. The former is the more likely to see some major-league starts. He’s posted good peripherals in triple-A and probably doesn’t have much more to prove. It would be no surprise to see him up in some capacity by the All-Star break, though it’s hard to expect more than back-end contributions from him. Owens, on the other hand, still has plenty to work on with control and command. If he comes up this year, it’ll likely be in September.
After the abysmal April this rotation put together, they’ve been a highly encouraging unit in the month-plus since then. The first four guys all look as if they should at least be serviceable moving forward, with two guys appearing to have high ceilings. There aren’t many appealing options for the last spot, and the group as a whole looks to be one arm short of being a strong unit. Of course, it should be good enough if the offense would play to its potential, but it’s unclear that will happen. Buchholz, Porcello, Miley and Rodriguez could be good enough to get back into contention, but with one more acquisition on the trade market, this could be a team that’s ready to break out in the second half of the season.
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