As early as late April, it became painfully obvious that the Red Sox' decision to bring their veteran starting pitchers along slowly in spring training was the wrong choice.
The rotation's inability to provide competitive starts in the first few weeks of the season resulted in a 6-13 record after three weeks. If that poor start didn't completely doom the 2019 Red Sox, then it certain dug them a substantial hole from which they never fully recovered.
It wasn't until May 8th that the Sox reached the .500 mark.
(To be fair, it's impossible to know whether the abysmal start to the season doomed them for the season. But it's far from a stretch to suggest that it was a major contributing factor).
The foundering start created a ripple effect for the rest of the pitching staff, too. With the starters unable (or more accurately, unprepared) to pitch deep into games, the burden fell to the bullpen to provide additional relief innings, and this domino-life effect created problems to the back end.
By the time the starters had built sufficient arm strength and the relievers recovered from overwork, it was nearly halfway through the season and too much ground had been ceded in the standings.
That miscalculation was costly enough - an ill-conceived bit of strategy that backfired and hurt them competitively.
But in recent weeks, that's become almost secondary.
Recall that the intent of the plan was two-fold: to ease the starting pitchers into the spring and early part of the season gradually, thus ensuring better performances in September and October as the Red Sox attempted to defend their title; and more broadly, this was designed to protect the pitchers' physical well-being, given what had been asked of the previous fall.
In reality, it did neither.
Beyond the substandard work from the starters -- the rotation's ERA was 5.05, eighth in the American League, heading into Friday's action -- it also failed to keep the starters healthy.
Of the four veteran starters that the plan was designed to safeguard, only one -- Rick Porcello -- has made every scheduled start. And Porcello has been freakishly durable over his career (30 or more starts in seven of his first 10 seasons, and virtually certain to top that milestone again this year), that he should almost be excluded from the calculation.
The other three?
- Nathan Eovaldi missed more than three months with a forearm and later, a biceps injury. He's made five starts so far this season.
- David Price has had two IL stints -- once for a forearm, and currently for a wrist injury.
- Chris Sale has suffered through his worst big league season and won't pitch again in 2019 with elbow inflammation.
__________________
__________________