Understand that while he didn't exactly cover himself in glory, Garrett Richards wasn't solely responsible for the Red Sox' 4-2 loss to the Detroit Tigers Tuesday night, though he surely did his part.
Richards allowed three runs in four-plus innings, failed to record an out in the fifth inning and has now gone 10 straight outings without contributing a quality start. In those 10 starts, he's completed five full innings just six times.
His ERA for the season sits at 5.21.
Alex Cora gave his starter the most lukewarm of assessments, noting that Richards pitched "OK.'' That might have been generous.
The main reason the Sox saw their longest losing streak of the year stretch to five was the offense, or lack thereof. The team has scored just 13 runs in the last four games. On Tuesday, they grabbed a 2-0 lead in the top of the second...then never scored again.
"Four runs against us...we do believe we should win those ballgames,'' said Cora. "This is more about the offense actually, more than the pitching.''
And so it is. If the Sox don't start averaging better than three runs per game, they can have Cy Young reincarnate starting for them and it's not going to change things.
That said, Richards has picked an exceedingly poor time to have his worst stretch of games. Waiting in the wings, one rehab start away, is Chris Sale. And offering another healthy alternative is Tanner Houck, who has a 2.45 ERA in six appearances for the Sox, four of them spot starts.
Houck is lined up to throw one of the two games in Saturday's doubleheader in Toronto. After that, however, he could be free to be inserted into the rotation on a more permanent basis. On the same day that Houck is throwing at Rogers Centre, Sale will be pitching somewhere in Moosic, Pa., one turn through the rotation from rejoining his teammates in Boston.
Enter, decision time. Exit Richards?
Richards has battled since MLB stepped up its enhanced crackdown on foreign substances in mid-June. Following some overly bleak self-assessments about having to ''learn how to throw the ball all over again,'' Richards has made at least some progress. He developed a changeup on the fly and introduced it mid-season into his repertoire, no easy feat.
But this about results and Richards isn't delivering any more.
When asked postgame whether he regarded starts like Tuesday a battle to remain in the rotation, Richards turned defensive.
"Not at all,'' he said. "That's you guys (thinking that), not me.''
When he was later asked whether a change in role might be beneficial for him -- at least in the short-term, as he continues to experiment with a new pitch mix -- Richards dug in deeper.
"I'm a starting pitcher,'' said Richards. "I have an ability to throw 100 pitches and keep my stuff the whole time. So I feel like that in itself is enough to keep me in the rotation.''
Perhaps on a team not contending for first place it might be. Or, frankly, for a pitcher with a longer contractual commitment, in who, the Sox have a longer investment. But the Sox are, five-game losing streak and all, a game out of first place. And Richards is guaranteed nothing past this season. (The Red Sox do hold an option on him for 2022).
Mostly, though, this is again about results, results that Richards isn't delivering on a regular basis. As he himself noted in a more candid evaluation of his year: "This is the worst season of my career.''
The Red Sox don't seem inclined to go with a six-man rotation for too long, feeling that it takes pitchers out of their usual rhythm and routines, and eventually becomes unwieldy. Even if they were to go with six starters for a period of time when Sale returns, Houck offers a tempting upgrade over nearly every other existing starter other than Nathan Eovaldi.
Naturally, Cora wasn't about to get dragged into any speculation over the fate of Richards going forward, noting only that Richards would make his next scheduled start on Sunday in Toronto.
After that, however, it would seem all other options are open. And for now, it would appear that the Red Sox will soon have not just one, but two better options than Richards for their rotation.