Pedro Martinez’s interesting pitching plan for a Red Sox Wild Card game

Pedro Martinez has an interesting pitching plan for a Red Sox Wild Card game

Barring some epic collapse by the Tampa Bay Rays, the Boston Red Sox will need to clinch a Wild Card berth to make a postseason run.

If that’s the case, the one-game golden ticket to October baseball is high stakes, and the Red Sox will need to be firing on all cylinders. A possible opponent will be the Toronto Blue Jays and AL Cy Young candidate Robbie Ray (2.64 ERA, 29 starts), stiff competition.

When it comes to starting pitching, the Sox have a few options. Chris Sale has been excellent but is only recently returned from Tommy John and a stint on the COVID IL after his second bout with coronavirus.

Nathan Eovaldi has been the Sox ace all season long. He’s earned the right to start a Wild Card game, posting a 3.58 ERA over 30 starts, the most in the American League. He has already far surpassed his career-high in strikeouts for a single season, and is on pace to reach 200 Ks for the first time.

Should Nathan Eovaldi or Chris Sale start a Red Sox Wild Card game?

Red Sox legend Pedro Martinez has a different idea. Paying a visit to the NESN booth in the third inning of Sunday afternoon’s game, he told Dave O’Brien and Dennis Eckersley that he’d “piggyback” Sale and Eovaldi in a Wild Card game, using the former as a starter, with the latter following in a long relief spot.

Why start Sale? Martinez’s argument is that since he’s pitched in so few games over the last two seasons, almost no one has faced him. He has a 2.40 ERA over six starts this season, none of which have been against the fellow Wild Card hopeful Blue Jays, Yankees, A’s, or Mariners.

It’s certainly a crafty strategy, but is it statistically proven? Sale returned from Tommy John exactly two years and one day after his final start of the 2019 season, so there is some distance between him and the opponents that hit him hard that year. The Blue Jays slashed .298/.355/.464 with a .819 OPS against him in four games in 2019.

Until 2019, Sale owned the lowest ERA against the New York Yankees of any starting pitcher in the Live Ball Era; that season, he had a 9.90 ERA in 20 innings against them, and their bats had a .975 OPS.

Unlike Sale, Eovaldi has pitched against the Blue Jays and Yankees multiple times this year. The Blue Jays knocked him around a bit twice, to the tune of a 5.56 ERA over 11 1/3 innings, but Nasty Nate has absolutely domiNATEd (see what I did there) the Yankees. His former team has a 2.01 ERA in five games against him. If they are Boston’s Wild Card opponent, starting Eovaldi might be the way to go.

Chris Sale has struggled for the Red Sox in the postseason

Between the 2017 ALDS and 2018 championship run, Sale has pitched in seven career postseason games. He has a 5.76 ERA over 25 innings, with 36 strikeouts, nine walks, and 16 earned runs allowed.

However, his overall ERA should be taken with a grain of salt; his postseason debut in Game 1 of the 2017 ALDS was a seven-earned-run nightmare in which Astros star Jose Altuve homered multiple times. Over five games during the 2018 postseason, he had a 4.11 ERA over 15 1/3 innings, with 24 strikeouts, seven earned runs, and only one home run on 11 total hits.

I’m hesitant to have Sale start the game due to his past postseason struggles, however, the idea of Eovaldi pitching in relief in a playoff game is absolutely thrilling given his brilliance during Game 3 of the 2018 World Series. I was there in person to witness his battle, an appearance so stunning that it brought his teammates to tears. He threw more pitches than that night’s starter, Rick Porcello.

Nathan Eovaldi is a Red Sox postseason legend

All of Eovaldi’s six career postseason pitching appearances came in October 2018, and he had a 1.61 ERA over 22 1/3 innings. His versatility that month was commendable and crucial: a start in the ALDS, a start and relief appearance in the ALCS, and three consecutive relief appearances in Games 1-3 of the World Series.

Eovaldi had been scheduled to start Game 4 of the Fall Classic, but was unavailable due to his six-inning relief appearance in Game 3, when he threw 97 pitches and only allowed one earned run on two hits. His performance was so astounding that the game felt like a win, even though it wasn’t; it motivated his teammates to rebound and take the series.

Given Alex Cora’s propensity to using starting pitchers in relief roles during the 2018 postseason run, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him go with a variation of Martinez’s plan.