Houck, Duran may get call sooner rather than later
Struggles of Cordero, Renfroe may open spot in outfield
It’s hard to believe Red Sox pitching staff doesn’t have room for Tanner Houck.
Or that the struggling outfield couldn’t benefit from Jarren Duran.
The Red Sox’ hot start has been delightfully surprising as the local nine has surpassed expectations early on. But after losing three of four to the lastplace Texas Rangers, there were some flaws exposed.
A big one is depth, and while the Red Sox have taken pride in building depth in the organization leading into the 2021 season, they haven’t really used it yet this year.
While other teams around the league have been calling up some of their top prospects — the Royals’ Daniel Lynch, the Rays’ Shane McClanahan and Luis Patino, the Twins’ Alex Kirilloff, among others — the Red Sox have yet to pull the trigger on any of theirs.
And they haven’t really needed to.
Their reasoning for
keeping Houck in the minors was to keep him stretched out and preserve depth in the rotation. And it’s certainly worked so far; Nick Pivetta (3- 0, 2.81 ERA) would’ve never gotten a chance to shine had he been replaced by Houck to start the year. But as well as Pivetta has pitched, there has to be concern about his command issues (17 walks in 25 2/3 innings) and curiosity if he’ll continue to perform after posting a 5.50 ERA over four seasons with the Phillies.
The question will be how long the Red Sox bullpen will continue this level of dominance.
Sox relievers have a 3.51 ERA, seventh-best in the majors, while their 11 strikeouts per nine innings ranks third. A large part of that success has come from Matt Barnes and Garrett Whitlock, who have been almost unhittable, though each contributed to blowing a lead in Sunday’s 5-3 loss to the Rangers. Lefty Darwinzon Hernandez is starting to look like a reliable back-end arm, too. Adam Ottavino has been inconsistent, but the bullpen has mostly been exceptional.
At some point soon, Houck will make his debut for Triple-A Worcester, which starts its season on Tuesday. The Red Sox will hope his confidence hasn’t wavered after getting demoted twice, despite dominating major league competition, and that his performance doesn’t suffer while the team continues to ask him to throw more of his third pitch, a splitter, despite looking like an elite starter with just two pitches, a fastball and slider.
But it’s hard to fault the Sox for keeping Houck stretched out in Worcester right now, particularly after top pitching prospect Bryan Mata went down with Tommy John surgery. As much as Houck could help them right now, in any role, the team’s success from the mound has justified the decision to continue to delay Houck’s status as a big-leaguer.
The outfield is another story.
The struggles of Franchy Cordero and Hunter Renfroe, along with Bobby Dalbec at first base, have made the Red Sox one of the worst teams in baseball from the bottom of the order.
Ranked by OPS, they’re 30th from the No. 7 spot (.462), 13th from the No. 8 spot (.634) and 27th from the No. 9 spot (.445), which is particularly alarming considering most National League teams are using a pitcher in the No. 9 spot.
Because they’re short on options or have more belief in Renfroe than most teams would, Renfroe continues to get playing time against right-handed pitching. He’s struggled against righties for the majority of his career, with a drastic difference in his splits vs. right-handers (.214 average/.706 OPS) compared to vs. left-handers (.256/. 903).
He’s supposed to be platooning with Cordero, but has nearly double the plate appearances vs. righties, who he’s hit just .178 with a .471 OPS against.
Cordero has been a disaster on all sides of the ball. After coming over from the Royals in the Andrew Benintendi trade, he had a late start due to COVID-19 and the lack of playing time in spring training has been clear (.158 average, .406 OPS).
With Kiké Hernandez (.231/.671) and Marwin Gonzalez (.189/.598) are also struggling at the plate, the Red Sox have used a lot more of Christian Arroyo (.302/.766) at second base than they planned on.
That’s where the inclusion of Duran could make things really interesting. Duran hits left-handed but has actually pummeled lefties more than righties in his minor league career thus far.
The Sox view him as an everyday outfielder when he’s ready, and after listening to the glowing reviews from Worcester hitting coach Rich Gedman this week, it sounds like he’s ready.