Red Sox's Rotation Belongs on Short Leash After Recent Struggles

Let's face it: There always was going to be a point in the 2015 season when we gathered to freak out about the Boston Red Sox's starting rotation.

Well, get your freak-out hats on. Just nine games into Boston's season, the time is now.

Things started out well for the Red Sox's rotation. When Joe Kelly capped off his seven innings of one-hit ball at Yankee Stadium on Saturday, Boston starters had an oh-so-pretty 2.30 ERA. The first time through, Boston's rotation looked poised to silence the doubters.

But then came the second time through, which isn't going so well. In the last four games, Boston starters have combined for a 12.93 ERA in 18.1 innings. If you want the whole bloody story, it looks like this:

Pitcher	DATE	Opp.	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO
Clay Buchholz	Apr. 12	@ NYY	3.1	9	10	9	2	2	3
Rick Porcello	Apr. 13	vs WSH	8	4	4	3	2	1	6
Justin Masterson	Apr. 14	vs WSH	4.2	8	7	7	0	3	4
Wade Miley	Apr. 15	vs WSH	2.1	5	7	7	1	3	1

Rick Porcello was pretty good in his start against the Washington Nationals. Good for him. But Clay Buchholz was terrible against the New York Yankees, and Justin Masterson and Wade Miley weren't much better in their turns against the Nationals.

As a result, what was once a sparkling 2.30 ERA is now a decidedly not-sparkling 6.16 ERA. Also, what was once a shred of optimism has reverted back to the pessimism that surrounded the Red Sox's rotation when everyone noticed that the five guys in it had combined for a 4.55 ERA in 2014.

Unless, of course, you ask the Red Sox. 

"We have the capability from a starting standpoint to keep a game under control, and that needs to be more consistent than this turn through the rotation," said skipper John Farrell, per Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald. "We have the capability of doing it. We've shown it. There's a track record of that being done."

If this sounds familiar, that's because this is more or less the same company line the Red Sox have been sticking to ever since they put the finishing touches on their 2015 rotation. The five guys they lined up may have been mediocre in 2014, but the Red Sox have repeatedly stated their confidence in them.

And in fairness, it is really early in the season. This is small-sample-size territory, where weird things happen and many a weary traveler has been misled as a result.  

But now that we've noted that, we can get to the part where I tell you why you should be worried and, more to the point, why the Red Sox need to keep their belief in their rotation on a short leash.

Kathy Willens/Associated Press

It's Buchholz, Masterson and Miley that stand out as the biggest wild cards in Boston's rotation right now, and not just because their most recent starts were epic clunkers.

There's also how said clunkers call to mind how they were pretty unreliable last season, too. Buchholz and Masterson authored ERAs over 5.00 in 2014, and Miley put up a 4.34 ERA despite having the benefit of National League surroundings with the Arizona Diamondbacks. 

In choosing to put faith in these three anyway, the Red Sox were effectively putting faith in the idea that all three could fix what ailed them. And that's where we get into what's really troubling about their respective clunkers, as they shine light on how all three starters still have their issues.

With Buchholz, it's not a stuff problem. FanGraphs can show that his velocity is holding steady, and his stuff in general definitely looked crisp as he was striking out nine Philadelphia Phillies on Opening Day.

But a trend that has plagued Buchholz throughout his career is him too easily allowing the wheels to come off. That's what happened in his clunker against the Yankees—even before they hung a seven spot on the board in the first inning if you believe what one scout told ESPN.com's Buster Olney:

After Buchholz lost confidence in his stuff and the runs started to tally up, he then seemed to lose confidence in himself. As Sean McAdam of CSN New England noted, there was "a hint of disinterest in his demeanor on the mound."

Masterson's problems, meanwhile, are more straightforward. 

Masterson has never had particularly good control, but it got really bad last year when a knee injury impacted his mechanics and led to a BB/9 rate of 4.8. With a 4.2 BB/9 through two starts, it appears he's still having trouble finding his mechanics.

An even more troubling picture, however, comes courtesy of Brooks Baseball:

Image courtesy of BrooksBaseball.net.

These downward-trending lines represent Masterson's velocity, which has gone from bad in 2014 to worse in 2015. This isn't stopping him from getting ground balls at his usual rate, but it's definitely something that will keep him vulnerable to hard contact at any moment.

Miley is also vulnerable to hard contact, though for him it has nothing to do with velocity.

More often than not, Miley is going to avoid hard contact due to how well he keeps his stuff at or below the knees. He's a low-ball pitcher all the way, and you can generally tell he's having a good night when the ground balls are there.

But when Miley is missing up, as he was against the Nationals, bad things happen. Because his low-ball approach doesn't involve changing eye levels, hitters have shown over the last year that they're not going to shy away from swinging when Miley misses up.

Charles Krupa/Associated Press

And when they do swing, they don't miss. According to Baseball Savant, Miley has allowed a .323 average and .515 slugging percentage on pitches in the upper two-thirds of the zone and beyond since the start of last season.

To be sure, Buchholz, Masterson and Miley have been successful pitchers in the past, and they each still have enough talent to be effective. But as the Red Sox have recently been reminded, they're also volatile chemical mixtures that can blow up at any time.

That alone is reason enough for them to not be too committed to their starting rotation as currently constructed, but it's not the only one. 

As I highlighted last week, the Red Sox are putting a lot of faith in Porcello's 2014 breakout, which may have been the product of good luck more so than good pitching. And as for Kelly, he's a guy whose career as a successful starter really boils down to one good second-half run in 2013.

So...time to panic, basically?

Not yet, actually. And maybe not ever. It's much too early in the season for anyone to be panicking, and the thing to keep in mind about the Red Sox is that their offense is a lot better equipped to deal with lousy starting pitching than most teams.

The last four games, however, do offer something of a tease as to what things could be like if bad starts become a regular occurrence. Instances of the Red Sox offense picking up the slack and not picking up the slack will probably be about 50-50, making it hard for the W's to come consistently.

Michael Dwyer/Associated Press

For now, all the Red Sox have gotten is a tease of such a pattern. But if it turns into something more than a tease, that's when general manager Ben Cherington needs to start working the phones.

Goodness knows Phillies ace left-hander Cole Hamels should remain up for grabs, and pitchers who could join him on the trade block later this summer include Cincinnati Reds ace Johnny Cueto and Texas Rangers right-hander Yovani Gallardo. Any one of them would add some stability to Boston's rotation and, ideally, be a weapon for the Red Sox in October.

Also, don't rule out Cherington considering in-house options as well. He has one of the best left-handed prospects in baseball to call on in Henry Owens, and fellow lefties Eduardo Rodriguez and Brian Johnson are also well-regarded youngsters.

For now, the Red Sox can continue rolling the dice with their current rotation. If they're lucky, the disaster starts won't keep coming in bunches and their model of winning games with just enough pitching and more than enough offense will work like a charm.

But if that doesn't happen, the choice will be between sticking to the plan or drawing up a new one. And odds are that will be an easy call.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted/linked.

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