CHANGE IS NECESSARY
Sox-Rays series should include revolving door of pitchers
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Rays have a tendency to drive at least half the baseball world crazy with openers and pitching changes that slow the game down and never let other teams get into a rhythm. This postseason, it could be the Red Sox, too. As the Red Sox and Rays got to work at Tropicana Field on Wednesday in preparation of the American League Division Series that begins Thursday night, it was easy to envision a game in which a dozen pitchers, if not more, are shuffled in and out of the game between the two sides.
“I mean, we will keep mixing and matching and we’ll try to maximize our roster,” said manager Alex Cora. “Yesterday we used Hansel Robles in a situation that we knew he had a chance to face lefties. He did a good job. Garrett Whitlock came in there with some matchups that we felt that were good. Tanner Houck, the same thing. We’ll keep mixing and matching, and we’ll use our starters, too, in this series. We will. So, you know, let’s see where the games take us, and we go from there.”
The starting rotation tentatively looks like it’ll go to Eduardo Rodriguez in Game 1, Chris Sale in Game 2 and Nathan Eovaldi in Game 3.
If Eovaldi was as good as it gets on Tuesday night and was pulled after just 71 pitches — albeit in a singleelimination format
— it’s hard to imagine Cora letting any of his guys go much deeper than that.
Meanwhile, the Rays will counter with lefty Shane McClanahan, who averaged 75 pitches an outing this year. That’s actually high for a Rays team that routinely pulls its starters after only a couple innings.
If the Red Sox’ attack plan against the Yankees carries over to their plan vs. the Rays, it’ll focus on one thing: throwing strikes.
The Sox didn’t walk a single batter on Tuesday night, and it’s clear to see why. Over the past 20 years, teams that are able to go a full playoff game without issuing a walk are 59-31 (.655).
Part of it was by design, with Eovaldi looking to bounce back from his awful start against the Yankees 11 days earlier, when he gave up seven runs in two-plus innings. “We learned a lot from that,” Cora had said.
Eovaldi started the game with eight consecutive strikes. The Yankees have a potent offense, but they’ve largely been driven by their two monstrous sluggers, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. The Red Sox decided that one-run homers wouldn’t kill them and they were better off attacking everybody than giving out any free passes.
Getting the Yankees’ bats active forced the Red Sox defense to do their jobs, which they did. They also got a little bit lucky, with some Stanton balls smoked off the Green Monster that might’ve been homers in most ballparks.
Ryan Brasier, Tanner Houck, Hansel Robles and Garrett Whitlock joined Eovaldi to combine to throw 85 strikes on 113 pitches (75% strikes). It’s the ninthlowest number of pitches used by a team in a playoff game over the last five years, and the second-highest strike percentage of those teams.
Can the Sox stick with the same plan against the Rays? Maybe.
The Rays aren’t a team that relies on two
guys, but rather a team that moves the lineup along and entrusts everybody to do their part. But like the Yankees, they also strike out often and aren’t afraid to fall behind in counts. Eovaldi explained that pitching against teams you’ve just seen isn’t easy, but the Sox haven’t seen the Rays in a month. “I feel like most of the time it’s those back-to-back series,” Eovaldi said. “Those were the most challenging times. As long as there’s a two-week or three-week gap, it changes everything. “
The bullpen has long been a question mark for this team, particularly since Matt Barnes and Adam Ottavino began to struggle after the All-Star break. But Cora seems to have developed some trust in a few guys over the last month. Brasier and Robles have come on strong at the right time, and neither one were on the Sox’ roster in the first half of the year. Houck has now thrown six straight perfect innings, a remarkably impressive run considering how he’s been whipped around between the big leagues and minor leagues, and between the rotation and the bullpen. Whitlock just came back from a pectoral strain and there’s no telling if he’s still pitching through discomfort, but he hasn’t shown any signs of it. It’s a surprisingly strong group all of a sudden, particularly with the addition of whichever starting pitchers Cora decides to use in the ‘pen on a given night.
That means a whole lot of pitching changes. Just like the Rays are used to.