All of us keep pointing our fingers at the starting rotation as the cause of all evils. Have you ever thought that maybe it is the catcher? This isn’t the first time I have brought up this subject. I don’t find it coincidental that the last year that Josh Beckett, Jonathan Papelbon and even Daisuke Matsuzaka were effective was when Jason Varitek was the signal caller. Not that I want to see a 39 yr old catcher behind the plate, but what other options do we have. I like Jarrod Saltalamacchia and I think his has tremendous potential. But…..
The pitching so far has been horrendous. Really the only good starts have been Jon Lester‘s against Cleveland and Beckett Sunday night. The relief pitching has fared no better. I am really surprised how bad Dan Wheeler has been. Obviously you can’t overhaul the entire pitching staff, but you can make the change behind the plate. There is a reason he is the captain. He knows how to teach the younger pitchers , yet control the veterans. Do you think Varitek would have let Daisuke groove every pitch down the middle of the plate all night? I don’t.
Believe me when I tell you , the thought of having Varitek come to the plate 4 times a game is excruciating. But , watching this pitching is even worst. I can handle losing if the games are at least entertaining. The last thing I want to grow accustomed to is changing the channel every night by the third inning. I heard Rob Dibble and Jim Memolo ask the question, “if the Red Sox could trade their entire starting rotation for either Tampa Bay’s or Toronto’s , would they do it?” Both of them answered with a resounding “yes” without hesitation. Pretty sad for a team that was thought of to have one of the deepest rotation in all of baseball.
Now, you can easily start Tim Wakefield in place of Daisuke for a few starts and see how that works out. To me, Tim Wakefield will always be a .500 pitcher, so how many more wins will that represent for the Sox?
I could be very wrong here, but I would rather take a chance on Varitek right now then to wake up on May1, 10 games out.
What do you think?
For all the latest news and analysis from BoSox Injection, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or with our RSS feed
Add us as a preferred source on Google