Rotation’s day-to-day
That’s a good thing this spring training
FORT MYERS — Before joining a ping-pong game in which he displayed surefooted lateral motion, a high spin rate on his serve and a wicked backhand, Eduardo Rodriguez agreed with the opinion that his confidence about being a force on the pitching mound this season is running strong.
RED SOX BEAT Michael Silverman
“Way better,” Rodriguez said. “You’ll see. You’ll see this year — then you’re going to tell me how I made it look easy!”
There’s nothing easy about maintaining the health of any starter for an entire season, as Rodriguez, the rest of the Red Sox starters and the casual baseball fan could tell you.
But despite the possibility that Drew Pomeranz, Steven Wright and Rodriguez — the bottom half of the rotation — could start the season on the disabled list, the shroud of uneasiness that hung over this team one year ago is absent this March.
That one of the team’s aces, David Price, was down and out last year and Pomeranz was on a slow track helped fuel the 2017 spring training perception, wrong as it was in terms of sheer numbers. The rotation wound up being a strength last year, despite Price being almost a complete non-factor.
The Red Sox had the depth in numbers by the time the season ended, although the best performer, Chris Sale, was running on fumes once the playoffs arrived.
This spring, the looseness and positivity emanating from Sale, Price and Rick Porcello has been well-documented, with the club bending over backwards to ease its Big Three into the regular season to get the best out of them for not only six regularseason months but the seventh month in October.
It takes more than three to make a rotation, of course, but the sense of doom and gloom has evaporated even though Rodriguez, Pomeranz and Wright all are on the sideline for now.
Their injuries appear to minor. Their future is bright.
The rotation depth is not here at the moment, but it’s on order.
Rodriguez threw his first live batting practice session since undergoing surgery to stabilize his wobbly right knee in the offseason. He will throw another on Thursday before a more regular throwing regimen will begin. It may not end in time for the season’s start, but Rodriguez and manager Alex Cora feel good that once he comes back, he’ll stay back.
“It was huge for him,” Cora said from Dunedin, Fla., about Rodriguez’ session on Field 1 behind JetBlue Park. “Like I said before, coming into camp, or actually talking to him in December, I was like, well it’s going to take a while for him to get on the mound. But props for him. He’s been amazing. He’s been in the weight room and the training room just going through his craft, and for him to be on the mound, excellent.”
Rodriguez made no effort to play it cool with how excellent he felt.
“I threw pretty good (for the) first time facing hitters, I was testing everything that I could throw,” Rodriguez said. “I threw all my pitches, everything was good and I’m ready for the next test.”
Pomeranz (forearm strain) had a positive bullpen session in which he threw only fastballs as he continues to take small steps to returning from the forearm tightness that forced him out of his first start of the season at the beginning of the month. He said he felt fine and that he has been able to maintain strength in his throwing arm. Exactly what the club had in store for him next was an unknown.
With an off day today, the club’s medical staff will confer with the training staff to come up with a plan.
Whether that plan stretches into early April, the earliest Pomeranz could pitch is a mystery, but the club doesn’t sounds worried.
“We’ll have to wait and see — for how good or bad they feel, for me it’s just, I’m not going to push (Pomeranz) just to push him,” Cora said. “We understand it’s 162 games. Yeah, people say, the games count the same in April as in late September, but want them healthy and be who they are the majority of the season. So, that’s the most important thing, and that’s why you take it on a daily basis with them and we keep adding stuff or subtracting stuff from their programs.”
And with Wright (knee surgery) feeling good yesterday after a strenuous workout the day before, Cora seemed nonplussed about Wright, Rodriguez and Pomeranz headed toward the DL. The pitchers are headed in the right direction, so roster status is not the point, Cora said.
“There might be a chance, maybe, maybe not (of disabled-list stints), it’s just a matter of how it goes this week with them,” Cora said. “Eddy, obviously, for me, you’ve got to be patient still. For the pitcher he is and what he’s been going through the past few years, we have to make sure he’s where he should be, and like I said before, he’s been amazing. With Drew, we’ll see. “It’s a day-by-day basis.” We’re all day-to-day. This spring, the Red Sox rotation certainly is, too.
Their day will be here soon.