McAdam: Red Sox need more length from starters to preserve bullpen

It's easy to forget, with all the other issues the Red Sox are dealing with, but only a few short weeks ago, the bullpen was No. 1 area of concern for 2019.

In time, that may still be the case. The team lacks a proven closer and the performance of relievers is notoriously fickle.

But for now, the team's bullpen is the least of their worries.

For now.

As is plainly obvious for anyone who's been paying a little bit of attention, it's the starters who are (mostly) to blame for the team's dreadful 3-9 start. Through the first dozen games, the Sox have one quality start, and only three times has a starter pitched through the sixth inning.

As a staff, the team's starter ERA is a bloated 8.78. And take away the three-inning spot start provided by Hector Velazquez Sunday in Phoenix and that numbers goes up to 9.30.

That number is bad enough. But a worse one is 53.1. That represents the number of innings provided by the starters through the first 12 games, averaging just over four innings per outing.

In addition to helping to explain the 3-9 mark, it also portends poorly for the future.

Thanks to the inability of the starters to take the Red Sox deep into games, the bullpen has had to pick up the slack. To date, Red Sox relievers have chipped in with 47.1 innings, a figure exceeded by four American League teams, two of which have played more games than the Sox.

Put another way, the rotation and bullpen have nearly split the number of innings almost exactly in half. That's not a winning formula and certainly not the ratio the Sox enjoyed last season when the rotation was responsible for 60 percent of the load and the bullpen 40 percent.

The wonder, to date, is how well the bullpen has pitched despite the heavy workload, with a respectable 3.61 ERA, good for seventh among AL teams.

But given the burden placed on relievers in the first four series, it might not be long before over-use becomes problematic. It helps that the Sox are in the midst of a stretch that has them enjoying two off-days in the span of three, providing some much-needed downtime for their cast of relievers to recover.

The schedule won't always be so accommodating, however. After Wednesday's break, the Red won't have another off-day until April 18 in between road series in New York and Tampa Bay.

After Tuesday's home opener loss to Toronto -- when a handful of relievers recorded 15 outs compared to starter Chris Sale's 12 -- manager Alex Cora was asked how much longer the team could continue to ask for so much from the relievers.

"Hopefully not long, hopefully not much,'' said Cora, with what initially appeared to be a counterintuitive response. "Because that means our starters aren't going in deep.''

Forgive Cora's somewhat fractured syntax. What he meant was, the team won't need to keep asking the bullpen to assume so many innings.

That's entirely logical. Through the first two weeks of the season, two permanent members of the bullpen -- Ryan Brasier and Brandon Workman -- are unscored upon, while Matt Barnes has allowed just one earned run over five innings. That level of dominance is unlikely to be sustained, even if all three have shown themselves to be dependable major league relievers.

Eventually, they'll crack and have a bad outing or two. It happens to the best relievers. And the more they're asked to handle, the more predictable --and rapid -- that downturn will become.

It's hardly a secret rest is imperative for a bullpen. The Red Sox already knew that because of their ramp-up strategy in spring training and a demanding schedule that had them playing 11 games in a row out of the chute would test their staff.

But that calculation did not involve having their established starters pitch as poorly as they have. Only two of their five starters -- David Price and Nathan Eovaldi -- can say they're averaging less than a run a per inning.

Given how much the Red Sox have invested in their rotation -- financially and otherwise -- and how they've constructed their roster, the rotation needs a quick turnaround to get the Sox back on track. Failing that, the team's solitary bright spot this season will begin to fail them, too.