SOX COULD SHOCK WI
How about an enlightening dose of perspective before the Red Sox begin a crucial threegame series against the first-place New York Yankees on Tuesday?
No, the Sox aren’t hitting home runs. They rank 12th out of 15 teams in production from the designated hitter spot after David
Ortiz kept them in first or second
BASEBALL NOTES Jason Mastrodonato
place in 10 of the previous 13 years. Their second baseman is injured and they have not a single reliable third baseman.
But before we explain why the 2017 Red Sox are a team that should continue to operate as if they’re World Series contenders, let’s travel back in time for a bird’s eye view.
In December 2014, then-general manager Ben Cherington sat at a table in a hotel suite in San Diego during the winter meetings and tried to move on from the loss of Jon Lester, who had signed with the Chicago Cubs the day before.
In response, the Red Sox traded for Rick Porcello and
Wade Miley, signed Justin Masterson and were planning to begin the 2015 season without a proven front-line starter.
After what Lester did in the 2013 postseason (4-1, 1.56 ERA in 342⁄ innings), and after Madison 3 Bumgarner’s historic performance for the San Francisco Giants in the 2014 postseason (4-1, 1.03 ERA, 522⁄ innings), it was 3 asked: How could the Red Sox expect to win a World Series without an ace?
“I think it can be done,” Cherington said. “I think there are good teams that have both versions.”
And then, almost as if Cherington didn’t believe what he was saying, he appeared to admit defeat. The Red Sox wanted an ace. They just couldn’t get one.
“I think as I’ve said before, I think we feel it’s never a question about whether a team would benefit from having an ace or a frontof-the-rotation type of starter,” he said. “The question is how do you get them and where do they come from?
“If you’re looking at baseball, in 2014, the top 10-15 starting pitchers in baseball, there’s a bunch of them that two years ago would not have been on that list. So pitching can change quickly. And again, hopefully we’re closer to building some strength and depth in the rotation and we also have, beyond that, a lot of younger pitching that we think in time, some of them have a chance to develop into that type of guy. As I said, I think we still feel like the winter meetings is relatively early in the offseason and there’s a long way to go and we’ll see what comes to us.”
No other quality starting pitchers came to the Red Sox that winter, and they went on to win just 78 games. Cherington lost his responsibilities and walked away from the organization midseason.
It’s too bad, too. He was right.
Time to find an identity
It’s cliche, but there’s good reason the 162-game baseball season is called a marathon:
• On June 1, 2016, the eventual American League champion Cleveland Indians were just 27-24.
• On June 1, 2015, the eventual National League champion New York Mets were 29-23.
• On June 1, 2014, the eventual AL champion Kansas City Royals were 26-30, in last place in the AL Central.
So it’s clear: Dominance in the regular season isn’t necessary. Especially now that 10 teams make the playoffs, the biggest challenge is just getting there. The way teams are building rosters isn’t always to win 95 games. It’s often just as focused on winning a seven-game series.
The ’16 Indians, the ’15 Mets, the ’14 Royals — all had their thing.
The Indians, much like the Royals two years earlier, came to life with a dominant bullpen. Those Royals had three guys — Wade Davis, Kelvin Herrera and Greg Holland — who finished the regular season worth at least 3.0 wins above replacement. The ’16 Indians had Andrew Miller,
Dan Otero and Cody Allen — all worth at least 3.0 WAR.
The ’15 Mets had a dream starting rotation with Matt Harvey and Jacob
deGrom worth more than 5.0 WAR each, and Noah Syndergaard establishing himself on the big stage.
The ’16 Chicago Cubs took some pages from the ’ 13 Red Sox playbook: Both were ranked No. 1 in offense, had one of the game’s best closers ( Aroldis Chapman for the Cubs and Koji Uehara for the Sox) and had Lester at the top of the rotation.
The ’ 15 Royals were almost impossible to strike out.
The ’14 Giants had a robot named Bumgarner.
Every championship team has a thing.
That should bring the calendar back to today, as the Red Sox look like a top-heavy team that can’t score runs consistently, struggled to fill the back end of their rotation in April and May and is still a reliever or two short.
And yet, when the eyes move away from the 162-game schedule and start lining up the roster for a seven-game series in October, how many teams would love to trade rosters with the Red Sox?
Five Sox aces for real?
It all starts with the rotation, the very rotation Cherington was dreaming about in 2015.
The Red Sox owned the AL’s lowest starting pitcher ERA from May 13-June 1, posting a 3.03 mark while their starters went 8-1 with 84 strikeouts to just 13 walks.
Porcello had his worst season in 2015, then won the Cy Young