The Red Sox lost the series opener to the Angels, 2-1 on Monday night. Depsite the loss, it should not be overlooked at the fact Tanner Houck showed he belongs in the rotation moving forward.
The right-hander tossed six strong innings Monday night making the case to Alex Cora that he can be a trusted member of the rotation.
Houck allowed just one run, three hits and two walks while fanning eight batters. The Mizzou standout held Angels’ superstars Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani a combined 0-for-5 with four strikeouts.
Boston is going to continue to employ a six-man rotation for the remainder of the road trip but plans on moving back to a more traditional five-man group.
Houck who has been considered the next potential piece to shift to the bullpen gave one of his best performances of the season.
The narrative that may prevent Houck from remaining as a starter has been his ineffectiveness second and third times through the order.
Houck has been outstanding the first time through the order holding opponents to a .109 batting average through eight starts. The results haven’t been kind for Houck when he sees opponents a second (.369 batting average) and third time (.313 batting average) through.
While the numbers paint a damning picture, something seemed to have clicked differently for the 26-year-old. He gave up his only run in the bottom of the second, a first-pitch RBI ground out to Luis Rengifo.
Houck later loaded the bases after hitting a batter and another single. He faced Trout with the opportunity for the long-time Angels’ superstar to break the game wide open. Instead, he threw a devastating 84 mph slider that was foul tipped into Connor Wong’s catchers mitt.
“Got into trouble early,” said Houck. “Was kind of fighting my delivery the whole time. But I focused on it and was having good conversations with [pitching coach Dave Bush] in between innings and made some adjustments.”
The Angels lineup was just 2-for-14 with two singles from the second and third times through.
Houck tossed 83 pitches, he had 17 swing and misses, living off his slider (seven whiffs) throwing it 34 times (41% of the time). His splitter was just as effective, garnering six whiffs and 100% zSwing% (first pitch strike percentage), according to Baseball Savant.
“I’ve worked on that pitch (splitter) for three or four years now,” said Houck. “Really pushing the envelope. I’m glad I mixed it in a little bit earlier tonight. I felt pretty confident with it. It’s one of those pitches where I have continued to work and continued to push myself on that. So any time you have success, it’s a good feeling.”
Cora told reporters post-game that he intends to stick with Houck in the rotation.
“We talked about it in spring training. He’s going to pitch a lot of innings,” Cora said to reporters. “If it was [as] a reliever, a starter, we said he was going to pitch a lot of innings. Right now, he’s one of our best starters, forget the numbers. You look up and you see a five [ERA] and you’re like, ‘Nah, that’s not him.’ So I'm glad that he pitched well against them tonight. And now, we'll get ready for the next one.”
Houck is proving that his development is continuing at the big league level. His struggles second and third time through the order have been glaring but he’s proving to Cora that he deserves to stick around in the rotation longer.
“It’s learning, man. This is the big leagues. Not everybody can do that [well],” manager Alex Cora said of going through an order more than once. “He’s going to learn how to do it. I think his stuff, like we talked before the game, it’s the same stuff. It's just a matter of learning and where to go with pitches and all that, and little by little, he's going to be doing that consistently.”