Pomeranz = Buchholz
Inconsistency continues for lefty in latest outing
DUNEDIN, Fla. — Here’s the good news: It looks like Drew Pomeranz is going to be ready to be in the Red Sox starting rotation when the season opens in nine days.
And here’s the possibly-not-sogood news: Pomeranz had a very Clay Buchholz-like four innings of work yesterday.
Less than a year into his Sox career, Pomeranz is still unpredictable.
The first two innings of the Grapefruit League start were a disaster. The Toronto Blue Jays rifled the ball to the outfield wall in left and right, scoring three runs on five hits. At one point, Pomeranz walked No. 9 hitter Ezequiel Carrera with two outs, then gave up a two-run single to leadoff man Troy Tulowitzki.
For a starter trying to prove he was ready to earn a spot in the rotation, Pomeranz was failing.
“And then the warmups before the third inning, it clicked,” Pomeranz said. “I was able to repeat everything and it was just a different game out there.”
After throwing a practice pitch with poor mechanics, Pomeranz said he knew what to change.
“The very next warmup pitch I just felt it,” he said. “I was out there shaking my head like, ‘You got to be (expletive) me.’ That how it always happens. One pitch.”
The light bulb went on. Pomeranz discovered he wasn’t pushing off his back leg, which allows him to drive toward the plate and to “pitch through the ball.”
Suddenly, he was able to work the corners. He rolled through the third inning on three quick groundouts. He felt so good after a three-batter fourth inning that he jogged to the bullpen to throw 15 more pitches.
“It’s such a relief,” Pomeranz said. “It’s going from having (an angry) ride home to a real happy ride home. Just mentally, it’s such a huge relief to be able to, even when you throw a bad pitch, you can just press reset right where you need to be.”
Now, the Sox will have to wait and see if Pomeranz can consistently pitch the way he did to finish the outing, as opposed to the way it began.
Much like Buchholz, Pomeranz has a history of looking great one inning, then falling apart the next. He’s been injured plenty throughout his career — with stints on the disabled list in 2013, ’14 and ’15, then pitching through elbow discomfort in ’16 — and has never thrown 200 innings. Earlier this week, he had to leave a spring start after two innings because his triceps tightened up.
In a bullpen session two days later, his mechanics appeared to be fixed.
“He was able to clean some things up in his delivery on the side day and his side day was more powerful than the game,” manager John Farrell said.
Pomeranz averaged around 90 mph with his fastball against the Blue Jays. As of now, it seems like two more spring training tune-up appearances would set him up to start the sixth game of the season, after Rick Porcello comes back from Opening Day to pitch on regular rest to start Game 5.
“Today was a big day in his progression,” Farrell said.
Pomeranz thinks he’s better than his 4.59 ERA last season with the Red Sox indicated. He posted a 2.47 ERA with the San Diego Padres before he was traded for top pitching prospect Anderson Espinoza.
“Obviously, I wasn’t happy with the way that I pitched (after the trade),” Pomeranz said. “Some games I was good and some games I was out of there before I would have liked to be. That’s part of it, being on different teams, different lineups, figuring out how to get those guys out and make pitches. Right now I feel great. I focus on that.”
Pomeranz threw 1702⁄ innings last year, which was significantly higher than his previous career high of 962⁄ innings in 2012 for the Colorado Rockies. Monitoring his workload in 2017 will be a must.
“To his credit, there might have been some days (last year) where he didn’t feel 100 percent,” Farrell said. “We know that for sure. But what we found out was he has a pretty high pain threshold and he was able to get through a number of starts when maybe some other guys wouldn’t have even attempted it. That’s a credit to him. But we also know that this is a guy who has been, for the better part of his big league career, a reliever … I think we’d probably hold him, restrict him a little bit more than any other guy in our rotation.”
When David Price is ready to come back from his elbow injury, moving Pomeranz to the bullpen could be one way to reduce wear on his arm and increase effectiveness.
Last season, Pomeranz’ fastball averaged between 90-94 mph as a starter in the regular season and 93-96 mph as a reliever in the playoffs. And for his career, his ERA as a reliever (2.10) is almost two runs lower than as a starter (4.07).
For now, Pomeranz, like Buchholz in the past, will be a mystery every five days.