Filed under: Boston Red Sox
OK so we finished out our roadtrip through Minnesota and Atlanta at 3-3. Not bad but I wouldn’t say its good either. The offseason philosophy shift from hitting to pitching and defense has only worked half way. The defense has been impressive but the pitching has sucked. Lester pitched very well in his major league debut, giving us hope that the hype around some of our prospects is in fact legit(see Papelbon, Jonathan). However its way too early to tell with some of the younger guys like Lester, Delcarmen, and Hansen.
We all know that Theo Epstein has struggled to put together a decent bullpen. Just take a look at Eric Wilbur’s Blog. However our starting pitching has been disappointing as well. Only two of our regular starters have winning records. Schilling(9-2) and Beckett(8-3) have been very solid overall. However neither have dominated in such a fashion that we can be completely comfortable with them on the mound. Wakefield has yet to find his groove and Matt Clement has been worse than a deaf guy playing musical chairs.
And if you haven’t been paying attention, the Sox have adopted a fifth starter-by-committee approach to our end of the rotation woes. Double-A David Pauley got the first few calls with Jon Lester getting the most recent last Saturday. However the Sox brass don’t want to rush Lester, so Francona will start Kyle Snyder tonight versus the Washington Nationals. Snyder was picked up off of waivers from the Kansas City Royals. If you don’t know what that means exactly, it means that Snyder was good enough to play for the Royals and was cut. The Royals! He was cut from the Royals! This isn’s a misprint. He wasn’t good enough for the Royals and now he is pitching for the Red Sox(who have a $130 million payroll and can’t find more than two starters with winning records). This should be interesting.
I am sure Theo is as frustrated as anyone. Acquiring Snyder and dealing Riske to the White Sox for Javy Lopez this past weekend demonstrates his willingness to at least attempt to fix this problem. Although Lopez and Snyder might be the furthest thing from the solution. With all the pitching problems the Sox have right now, if you don’t think a deal is coming in the next six weeks, you’re crazy.
Everyone is certainly hopeful that the kids will turn out to be what everyone has cracked them up to be, and thus alleviate some of Theo’s blunders and our pitching woes. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t very excited about these prospective Sox pitchers. However, they are going to have to wait until they are ready. To prevent the harsh and merciless bigs from mutilating their fragile little prospect psyches. I just hope Theo doesn’t deal them in an attempt to fix our problems right away. These guys could just be the Sox studs of the future. But for now we have to deal with Kyle Snyder. Yippee.
theaveragefan@bostonprosports.com
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