Cashner not change this team needs
It was quite the love affair and even generated headlines. But all good things must pass. The honeymoon can’t last forever. The world has a way of getting in the way.
We’re talking, of course, about Andrew Cashner and his changeup, which had become the match made in hitter hell until the script that had him saving the day for the Red Sox’ underperforming rotation blew up in his second inning of work for the first contending ballclub of his nine-year career.
Cashner came to the Red Sox on the sort of roll he never had experienced. He went 9-3 with a 3.83 ERA for the dreadful Orioles and hit another gear altogether at the beginning of June, posting
a 1.41 ERA in his final five starts for Baltimore’s onceproud franchise.
Sure enough, that hot streak started at the time his love affair with the pitch that can make hitters look so bad started whispers that had him heading out of Baltimore, a promotion no matter the destination.
“I’ve just had a ton of confidence in my changeup in the last, I would say, the last month and a half,” Cashner said the day before his Red Sox debut. “My other pitches, I’ve had great command of them but the changeup I’ve thrown in any count, been doing some different things with it. It’s been a big pitch for me.”
Working with catcher Christian Vazquez for the first time last night, Cashner went to the changeup over and over and over again until Blue Jays No. 8 hitter Teoscar Hernandez made the journeyman right-hander turn his head for a good look at the Green Monster seats. Hernandez killed any chance of Cashner starting a love affair with the Fenway faithful with one out in the second inning.
It was Cashner’s 35th pitch and 16th changeup and it made him sweat a little harder on a hot and muggy night.
Cashner lasted five-plus innings and was the pitcher of record in the Red Sox’ 10-4 loss to the Blue Jays. His pitching line for the day: eight hits, six runs (five earned), two walks, two strikeouts, one wild pitch, one hit batter, two home runs. He threw 92 pitches, 57 for strikes.
It used to be a cardinal sin to throw three consecutive changeups because the pitch was supposed to be a change of pace, but Cashner showed he doesn’t read that old book.
For the first out of the second, Cashner enticed an awful looking strikeout swing from Danny Jansen, who guessed wrong that Cashner wouldn’t send a fourth consecutive change his way. Wrong.
After starting off Hernandez with a pair of 94 mph fastballs, Cashner changed the pace by 10 mph and it didn’t appear to take Hernandez by surprise.
In this World Series hangover of a season wouldn’t it be just the Red Sox luck to acquire a pitcher who has reinvented himself at the exact instant that the AL has adjusted to the new Cashner.
Before the game, Red Sox manager Alex Cora defined his expectations for the club’s new No. 5 starter.
“We’re not going to change too much,” Cora said. “He’s been giving his team a chance to win, going six, seven innings. Some people feel like he’s been lucky (.256 batting average against on balls put in play), but you look at the last month and there’s a lot of weak contact. He’s a different pitcher, put it that way. He’s in a good spot, you know, veteran who comes into this situation and has a chance to win a ring. Looking for him to go out there and do the same thing, give us a chance to win.”
If Cashner, 32, can return to doing what he has for most of the season in his remaining starts, he can make a big difference for the Sox, who can’t afford for him to be the same pitcher he was in his first year with the O’s (4-15, 5.29 ERA).
The Sox came back from a 4-1 deficit to tie it with a three-run fifth inning, but Cashner coughed up the lead as quickly as is possible, hanging a curveball that Justin Smoak slammed to the back of the visitors bullpen in right field to start the sixth.