MLB Daily: The Red Sox Pitching is a Mess; Delmon Young Gets Scared by Ball; Mike Fiers' Immaculate Inning
By Mike Cardillo
Welcome to a Friday edition of MLB Daily. Yep, we made it another week …
Should the Yankees pay A-Rod his $6.5 million milestone home run bonus, my column: Yes. -30-
Plan B: Thursday the Red Sox fired pitching coach Juan Nieves, under the old adage you can’t exactly fire the players. Nieves said, via WEEI it wasn’t a surprise, adding, “We were not very good at all.” Suffice to say, when the only team with a worse staff ERA (4.86) than you is Colorado, you’re in trouble.
The Red Sox plan for pitching this year wasn’t all that insane. Instead of dolling out money for front line starters, i.e. Max Scherzer or Jon Lester, Ben Cherington went the innings-eater route. Going with groundball/pitch-to-contact guys like Rick Porcello isn’t a terrible idea, in theory. The Red Sox offense is still strong and if you can get pitchers who don’t rack up high pitch counts trying for strikeouts, they can last a little longer and help out the bullpen. Right now these guys are barely making it through the fifth.
So far the theory hasn’t worked as planned.
Wade Miley boasts a 7.15 ERA with 13 strikeouts in 22+ innings. Justin Masterson, Joe Kelly and Clay Buchholz are all over the 5.00 ERA threshold. Buchholz, the supposed staff ace, sports a 6.03 ERA with a .303 Batting Average Against.
There will be increased talk of the Red Sox again trying to go after someone like Cole Hamels, but is one “ace” pitcher in the American League East going to make a difference? If the Red Sox make the playoffs, we’ve seen that starting pitching can be a crapshoot — if we remember the World Series last year the only good starter on either the Royals or Giants was Madison Bumgarner. That said, if the current Red Sox starters can’t even get to the sixth inning — it’s still early May — it’s going to take a 1996 Colorado Rockies type offense to have any shot at the postseason, saying nothing of the strain on the bullpen and organizational depth.
Strikes and Gutters, man: In the first inning Friday night in the Bronx, Delmon Young robbed A-Rod of a home run. Later in the game this happened.
Hand it to Buck Showalter figuring out a way to write out a starting nine every day with numerous players like Young, Steve Pearce, Jimmy Paredes and even Chris Davis probably best suited to play DH.
Oops: Jake Marsinick made Albert Pujols look silly with the rare F-8 unassisted double play.
Immaculate Inning: Mike Fiers struck out the Dodgers on nine pitches in the fourth inning at Miller Park.
Fiers ended up giving up five runs in five innings, thanks in part to five walks. Dodgers catcher Yasmani Grandal hit two home runs and drove in eight.
What a Difference a Year Makes: As we know, Cleveland was a trendy World Series pick. A week into May, the team sports the worst winning percentage in the American League. Corey Kluber, last year’s Cy Young winner is 0-5 after a loss to the Royals. Wins and losses don’t define a pitcher, but in 44+ innings in 2015 he’s allowed 25 earned runs, compared to 64 in 235+ plus last year. He’s already walked 11, well above his pace of 51 last year. At his best Kluber still has the kind of stuff to pitch a shutout, but his Cy Young win is going to look all the more surprising as the year passes.
Kluber will end up in good company considering some of the random hurlers who’ve won the award such as R.A. Dickey, Brandon Webb, Pat Hentgen and MLB Daily commenter favorite Dewey LaMarr Hoyt.
Better Safe Than Sorry: Archie Bradley put on a mask in the dugout after almost getting hit by a foul ball in the dugout. Who could blame him?
Also, it’s odd that the D’backs original purple and teal uniforms — a wining fashion combination if there ever was one — are now considered throwbacks? Guess I’m getting old.
Everyone Loves Triples: Brandon Belt lumbered into third with his first triple since 2013. The bounce off the top of the fence is my favorite part.
This & That: A Twins fan complained there weren’t enough players standing for the National Anthem. … Pete Rose will make his Fox Sports debut as an analyst next week. … The Mets will giveaway fedoras next Saturday. Make of that what you will … We’ll do this again next week, probably.