Strutting Candidates: A recap of the Red Sox pitching staff last week
It was more of the same for the Red Sox pitching this week. Chris Sale looks absolutely dominant and is making an early case for Cy Young Award winner in the American League, but the rest of the Sox staff is shaky and inconsistent.
It was nice to see Brian Johnson make a spot start for the club in Toronto and he did OK getting through five innings allowing four runs on seven hits and three walks with six strikeouts. A lot of fans thought they’d never see Johnson in Boston again after his bout with an anxiety disorder. This a nice story all-around.
Drew Pomeranz is pitching just fine, but still cannot go beyond five or six innings. If they could stretch him out to seven innings, he would be a valuable middle-of-the-rotation guy.
Rick Porcello continues to be about a step behind what he was last season for Boston. He did manage to get through seven innings in a losing effort to Toronto in which the offense was held scoreless. A few more performances like this from Porcello and he’ll find a way to get in the win column. He needs to get that 5.32 ERA down a bit though.
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Talk about a guy that has regressed from 2016 to 2017 – Steven Wright is just not the same pitcher. This time he went a little further than his last effort, but that’s not saying much. Wright was knocked out of the game in the fourth inning after allowing four runs on nine hits, two of which were big homerun blasts.
What else is there left to say about Chris Sale? The guy is dominant. He could easily win the strut honors this week but I just can’t do it for the third week in a row.
The bullpen has been solid and has turned around for Boston. Matt Barnes has been fine, but his week was clearly defined by getting tossed for head-hunting on Machado. Craig Kimbrel, who easily could have had the strut honors last week, had a solid week considering he gave a homerun in the ninth of the Sale outing and blowing a huge save opportunity in the process. He turned it around that same game and struck out the side in the ninth to get the win. Kimbrel earned his seventh save of the season on Sunday in Baltimore.