McAdam: Red Sox rotation provides comfort for Alex Cora

PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. -- For some, the sight of a robin serves as a true harbinger of spring.

Alex Cora, however, has a different cue.

When Cora can pencil in the name of one of his veteran starters on the lineup card -- as he did Sunday morning when he wrote out Rick Porcello's name for the starting assignment against the Tampa Bay Rays -- he knows spring is closer than ever.

Cora presides over one of the game's most talented -- if not the most talented -- starting rotations. Two of his starters have won Cy Young Awards (Porcello and David Price) and a third (Chris Sale) has finished in the top five in Cy Young voting in each of the last five seasons.

The rotation is filled out by Nathan Eovaldi, who has yet to fully realize his considerable potential because of injuries but is now healthy and, based on his half season with the Red Sox last year, ready for a breakout year. Eduardo Rodriguez, with an embarrassment of riches in his pitching arsenal, may yet make good on his promise.

Sunday marked the first start by a non-Rodriguez starter this spring after the Red Sox dutifully held out the more established pitchers in recognition of the workload they shouldered deep into last October, both as starters and as late-inning "rovers'' out of the bullpen.

For the first 15 games, Cora had watched a parade of starters (Rodriguez notwithstanding) who will soon be ticketed for Pawtucket or Portland. On Sunday, with Porcello on the mound -- and Sale, Price and Eovaldi to follow over the next three days -- a sense of normalcy has returned to the Sox.

"It's always good (to see them take the mound),'' said Cora Sunday morning. "It tells you we're getting closer to the real thing. They bring something to the equation different than others. Our team starts with the starting rotation. As soon as you see them on the mound, it's like, 'OK, it's almost go-time.'''

Beyond any telltale signs of the start of the regular season, there's also the security the starters provide to Cora.

The manager is quick to point out that, for all his time in the game as a player, coach and now manager, pitching is a language in which he only occasionally dabbles. He's comfortable leaving the intricacies to pitching gurus Dana LeVangie, Craig Bjornson and Brian Bannister.

But Cora knows enough to know what he has on his hands, which is more than virtually every other manager in the game. Last year, among American League teams, Red Sox starters ranked fourth with a 3.77 ERA. And those numbers, good as they were, were fashioned with half the games played in Fenway, with another 27 division games played in ballparks known as hitter-friendly.

Moreover, those numbers were achieved with only two months worth of contributions from trade deadline-acquisition Eovaldi and only 17 innings from Sale after July 27.

"It gives you comfort,'' acknowledged Cora. "You go back to last year, and even with (depth starters Hector (Velazquez and Brian Johnson), I never felt there was one game where I thought, 'We need to score a lot for us to stay in the game.' We felt like, whoever was on the mound, he's going to give us six (innings) and give us a chance to win.

"We're one of the lucky ones around the league. I guess probably Houston felt that way last year, they felt that way ... Washington, too. It's a luxury, it's a luxury. They could be aces in any other rotation, but they're all together (here). The good thing is if you're on a losing streak, it's going to be stopped that day and if you're on a winning streak, it's going to continue. That's a good feeling.''

It's because of the rotation's depth and dominance that the Red Sox feel more comfortable heading into the season without a proven closer. No matter how the last few innings play out, the Sox know that their rotation is positioned to keep them in the vast majority of games.

"As a group,'' said Porcello, "we're all very confident and on any given night, no matter who's got the ball, we feel like we have a pretty damn good chance to win. Being able to have Nate for an entire year not only gives us another rock-solid starter that we can count on every fifth day, but his leadership qualities and what he provides in the clubhouse is only going to benefit our ballclub.''