Barnes racks up innings
Ex-starter feels good about total
RED SOX NOTEBOOK
ANAHEIM, Calif. — The question the Red Sox must consider with Matt Barnes, who entered Thursday as one of just 18 relievers in the majors to have thrown as many as 49 innings this season, involves his workload.
How many more innings can Barnes throw this season?
The front office may have to determine an answer when figuring out how aggressive they need to be in their pursuit of another reliever during trade deadline talks this weekend.
Barnes, who was a starting pitcher as recently as last season, thinks his unique experience bouncing back and forth between the rotation and the bullpen has helped prepare his arm to go the distance.
“I’m not preparing to pitch until Oct. 1, I’m preparing to pitch through the World Series,” Barnes said yesterday. “That’s how I’m preparing my body, my arm and the mentality we have to say, ‘We have three more months left.’ That’s the track we’re on right now.”
Between Triple-A Pawtucket and the majors, Barnes threw 1362⁄ innings 3 in 2014 while serving mostly as a starter. He threw 802⁄ 3 innings last year, mostly spent as a reliever.
He’s on pace to throw 80 innings again this season, plus the postseason, if necessary, which shouldn’t be much of a problem considering his recent workload the past two years.
“I don’t know what would be a lot of innings for a reliever,” Barnes said. “As long as my arm feels good, I think that’s all that matters.”
Barnes has been able to touch 100 mph on the Fenway Park radar gun at various points in July while maintaining his 98 mph average fastball velocity from month to month.
“I feel good right now,” he said. “There will be some points during this season where your arm is going to be tired or needs an extra day. (Wednesday) I felt good. I felt like I had good life on my ball. Coming out of the break I felt like I had really good life on it.”
Manager John Farrell has monitored Barnes’ workload of late, giving him multiple days of rest between each of his last three appearances, but the skipper said that Barnes is available to pitch on back-to-back days during this 11-game road trip. Farrell expected to rely on Barnes in the final 63 games as heavily as he’s relied on him during the first 99.
“He’s not far removed from being a starter,” Farrell said. “So the ability to go multiple innings inside of a game is present and it’s got extreme value … As long as he’s got ample rest, there’s no reason to think he can’t maintain his stuff throughout the course of a full year.” Brass hits road
Along with president of baseball operations Dave
Dombrowski, the Red Sox sent general manager Mike
Hazen and senior vice president Frank Wren on the current road trip. Before last night’s 2-1 loss to the Angels, Farrell said the front office was engaged in “trade deadline” activities.
The non-waiver deadline is Monday at 4 p.m. EDT.
Farrell said he’s comfortable with the Sox bullpen as is, even if Koji Uehara doesn’t recover in time to make a regular-season return from a pectoral muscle strain.
Farrell was particularly optimistic because of the pending return of closer
Craig Kimbrel (knee surgery), who will make a rehab appearance with Pawtucket tomorrow and could rejoin the Red Sox in Seattle early next week. Young on horizon
Outfielder Chris Young (hamstring) has begun jogging without pain and the team is eyeing the next homestand as a possible date for him to begin a rehab assignment.
Young, who has played on two playoff teams with the Diamondbacks, one with the A’s and one with the Yankees, said this year’s Red Sox team is “one of the most talented teams I’ve ever played on. The goal with every team you play on is to make the playoffs. Obviously sometimes you don’t have the personnel to do that. But we definitely have that this year. It’s just a matter of executing on an everyday basis.”
Farrell echoed that sentiment, implying that Dombrowski had already done enough work with the roster for the team to make a run at the AL East title.
“We feel like this a complete team when you look at balance both from a position player standpoint and the guys in this rotation,” Farrell said. “It’s up to us to go out and execute and perform to our abilities.” …
Farrell was so impressed with Clay Buchholz’ last two appearances that he said Buchholz could be used situationally rather than exclusively in a mop-up role.
“The way he’s thrown the ball of late, yeah,” Farrell said. “He’s going to throw strikes, he’s got a full compliment of pitches he uses, even in shorter stints, he’s done a good job of that. If the situation arises, depending who is available, he will be called upon … I think he’s thrown the ball very good.” Weather or not Rain or shine, hot or cold, Steven Wright must learn how to throw his spin-free pitch in any weather.
Farrell said he cannot consider scratching Wright whenever the weather isn’t perfect for the knuckleballer because the Red Sox roster doesn’t provide him that kind of flexibility.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to get him through 90 degrees,” Farrell said. “I’m not being critical. I’m being obvious. I realize that resin creates a sticky feeling in the hand and that it has an adverse effect on the consistency of the knuckleball. But your rotation is set up as it is, every fifth day. I don’t know that we can go through and look at the weather and forecast if we’re going to change the rotation. That’s not likely.”
Wright has allowed more than three runs in only five of his 20 starts this season. One of those games was pitched during the rain and during two of the games the temperature was above 90 degrees. …
Doug Griffin, who spent parts of seven seasons as the Sox second baseman in the 1970s, died on Wednesday in California. He was 69.