MORE STRUGGLES FOR PORCELLO AS ASTROS RIP SOX
Porcello’s struggles continue
HOUSTON — Coming off his Cy Young performance last season, Rick Porcello is a league leader again this year.
He has given up the most hits and is tied for the most losses.
Last night was loss No. 9 for the Red Sox’ Opening Day starter. He was hit early, hit hard and hit often, continuing a trend that has dogged him all season and leaving the Sox with a 7-1 loss to the league-best Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park.
“I’m not surprised,” Porcello said. “This is the big leagues. They’re just as good as anyone else. You’re playing against the best players in the world. When you’re not sharp and you’re not on your game, this is what happens.”
Given a chance to pull into a tie for first place in the AL East with the New York Yankees, the Red Sox were instead reminded that Porcello is no longer the winningest pitcher in baseball, as he was last season.
The Sox have won just four of Porcello’s past 13 starts, and he has won just once in the past month. All seven Houston runs were charged to the righthander.
“The difference once again is elevation in the strike zone,” manager John Farrell said. “It wasn’t pitch type. Any time he made a mistake up in the strike zone, whether it’s a breaking ball to (Jose) Altuve to a fastball that didn’t stay in or down to (Carlos) Beltran, those are pitches that seem to come back to haunt him.”
At times this season, it’s been possible — and perfectly viable — to attribute some of Porcello’s losses to a lack of run support. Last night marked the fifth time this season that he started a game in which the Red Sox were held to one run or fewer.
But much of Porcello’s record is also self-inflicted. At the current pace, his 5.05 ERA will be the highest of his career, even worse than the 4.92 posted in his disappointing Red Sox debut in 2015.
“I can’t say it’s dissimilar,” Farrell said.
For the fifth time this season, Porcello allowed double-digit hits. Four of those 10-hits-or-more games have come in his past six starts. He’s allowed at least eight hits in each of his past eight outings.
Porcello allowed eight hits in a game only seven times all of last year, and he allowed double digit hits just once last season.
Entering last night, his .366 batting-average against on balls in play was the second highest in the majors.
Porcello also entered the game having allowed 102 batted balls hit 95 mph or harder according to Statcast. That was tied for the sixth most in baseball, only three away from the third most. And in last night’s first inning alone, he added three more extreme exit velocity batted balls to his ledger.
Sure, the three-run first inning had an element of bad luck to it — a bunt single, a bloop double and a ball four on a close pitch — but George Springer’s leadoff double was hit 101 mph to left field, and the first two outs were both recorded on sacrifice flies to deep center field that came off the bat at 98 mph.
And the Astros weren’t finished hitting the ball with such authority.
Springer’s second double, Altuve’s home run, Carlos Correa’s line drive single, Brian McCann’s two-out single and backto-back hits by Yuli Gurriel and Derek Fisher to open the sixth inning all came off the bat at over 100 mph.
“I know what it is to fix,” Porcello said. “I’m just having a really hard time doing it.”
Farrell said Porcello has focused on mechanics in his between-starts bullpen sessions, but those adjustments have not carried into games with consistency.
“One thing we’ve tried to do is not throw as many four-seamers up in the strike zone where it might be more difficult to get back down in the bottom of the strike zone,” Farrell said. “There’s been a high number of two-seamers tonight, but still, finding their way to the mid-thigh region, the belt region, and that can be trouble as we saw here tonight.”
Also trouble: The Red Sox offense. While the Astros had five extra-base hits and a 6-0 lead through three innings, the Sox were hitless. Dustin Pedroia finally singled in the fourth, and Chris Young hit a solo home run to open the fifth, but that was the extent of the damage.
The Red Sox were silenced by 23-year-old David Paulino, who was making his fourth career start as a fill-in for an injury-depleted rotation, and never had an at-bat with a runner in scoring position.