Red Sox planning to use five-man rotation – at least for now

The Red Sox will use a five-man rotation to begin the 2021 season

The Boston Red Sox toyed with the unorthodox approach of using a six-man rotation but manager Alex Cora confirmed on Tuesday that his team will stick with the standard five starters when the regular season begins, according to MassLive’s Chris Cotillo.

Depth was a significant concern that derailed last year’s team but the Red Sox have added reinforcements that have turned this weakness into a strength. Cora seems pleased with his available options and praised a pitching staff that can get batters out in a variety of ways.

"“It’s a solid one,” Cora said. “Everybody has their strengths, obviously they have their weaknesses. We have changeups, we have fastballs at 97 (mph), we have breaking balls. It’s not just breaking balls, either. For certain teams, you know you’re going to get from 97 to 100 and you prepare for that. With us, it’s going to be a little different. The constant is we can get people out in the strike zone. It doesn’t matter what stuff you have. We’ve been preaching that and they’ve been doing a good job with us.”"

Eduardo Rodriguez, Nathan Eovaldi, Garrett Richards and Martin Perez are locks for the rotation but the Red Sox have some appealing depth behind them.

Nick Pivetta is well on his way to cementing his claim to the No. 5 spot with a strong spring. He’s allowed three runs over nine innings through his first three starts and has struck out eight batters with only one walk.

Tanner Houck impressed in a September audition last year, putting him on the radar for a rotation spot. Boston might not have room for him if they are only using five starters though. Since they have no intention of converting him into a reliever, Houck appears destined to open the season in Triple-A until an opportunity presents itself. Houck still has minor league options, while Pivetta doesn’t, giving the latter the advantage in this competition.

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The Red Sox added Matt Andriese through free agency this winter. While he has starting experience, the team plans to use him primarily out of the bullpen where they can take advantage of his versatility. Andriese is capable of logging multiple innings so he should stay stretched out enough to jump into the rotation for the occasional spot start if needed.

Cora’s comments provide some clarity on the five pitchers they are leaning towards using in their rotation to begin the season but the picture will get murkier when Chris Sale is ready to return this summer. What happens if all five starters are healthy and pitching well at that point? Determining who gets bumped for the returning ace could be a difficult challenge.

That’s when the six-man rotation could come back into play. The extra day of rest would benefit Sale as he works his way back into the mix. It would also help with monitoring the workload of Rodriguez, who also sat out the entire 2020 season. Every pitcher’s innings total was limited by last year’s shortened season so we can’t necessarily expect all of them to jump to 30+ starts and 200+ innings.

This plan obviously assumes the best-case scenario. Injuries or poor performances could make the decision easy when the time comes to activate Sale. This is why building depth for their pitching staff was so important. If a starter goes down, a viable replacement will be ready to step in. That’s a drastic improvement over the mud they were flinging at the wall last year when the Red Sox struggled to find five major league-caliber starters.

A surplus of pitching is a good problem to have. The Red Sox will open the season with a standard rotation but they will inevitably need to count on more than five starters over the course of a long season. If they are fortunate enough to have five healthy and productive starters when Sale comes back, we can’t rule out the possibility of Cora shifting to a six-man rotation for part of the season, even if that plan isn’t on the table at the moment.