Through a combination of a nearly unexplainable 9-game winning streak, a pair of off days within it, and the All-Star break stoppage, the Red Sox haven’t lost in over two weeks. Or to put it another way, their remarkable turnaround has left them delightfully stuck with a 48 in the loss column since July 1st.
That however, is almost certainly about to change. Even if the Red Sox maintain their general momentum and continue to play well, they’re about to embark on a stretch where they play 33 games in 34 days. This includes just two days off between now and August 20th, and a double header when the action restarts tomorrow (Friday the 17th) against the Rays.
This is potentially problematic because it’s going to put stress on the one thing that’s really kept the Red Sox afloat all season — Their pitching. When the team went out to the west coast at the start of their perfect 9-0 road trip, there were two off days within five days of each other (a Thursday and a Monday surrounding the Angels series) and a four-day break sitting on the back end of it. This allowed them to both be aggressive, and still have the good arms they needed for every situation.
Starting on Friday, they face the opposite scenario. With a double header and no off day until the follow Thursday, the Red Sox now either need to use six starters out of the gate, or have one of the starters they use on Friday also pitch on short rest Tuesday against the Orioles. Sticky wicket!
So what do they do? Well, so far this season, 11 guys have started at least one game for the Sox, and with that, I’d like to break them into three groups.
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Group C: The healthy starters in the rotation going into the break (Four guys: Jake Bennett, Sonny Gray, Payton Tolle, and Patrick Sandoval)
With this arrangement, I think the best way to cover all the starters needed between now and Tuesday is to use the four healthy arms from Group C, and then use Brayan Bello with Eduardo Rivera as his opener for both one of the double header games on the 17th, and again for the game against Baltimore four days later on Tuesday, the 21st.
This is probably the most effective use of Bello as it keeps him in the bulk role where he’s been most successful, and also pairs him with a lefty in Rivera, which keeps the opposing lineup off balance. If you don’t do this, you either have to come up with an additional starter by next week, or you need to start throwing one of the other four guys on short rest.
This is also technically a way around starting somebody on short rest on the 21st, because even though Rivera and Bello would be on short rest from a normal start day, their workloads would be lighter than you’d typically get on a full start day because they’d be piggybacking each other and splitting the innings.
When you plug the Rivera / Bello combo into the calendar and keep the other four guys in the order they were lined up from most to least rest, you get the following agenda:
I end with a question mark on July 27th for a few reasons:
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That’s where you’d get to the third swing of the Rivera / Bello combo, and we may be begging to jump off the train by that point.
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Ideally, one of the injured starters from “Group A” above may be able to come back and slot in here.
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Jake Bennett could make that start on normal rest (although that sounds like a bad idea given the scarcity of other off days in early August).
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It’s the end of the homestand, and it marks the club going out to the west coast, so it’s a natural stopping point. It’s also getting pretty close to the August 3rd trade deadline, which could result in some roster shakeup.
Regardless of how the Sox play the hand, the underlying theme here is they don’t have another ace in the hole until / unless they start getting guys back from the IL. Bello being solid in the bulk role and Sandoval suddenly settling in on a Major League mound for the first time in two years has been the bridge to get the team through this tight stretch, but with 60 percent of the Opening Day rotation on the IL, they can’t afford anybody else to go down.
And adding extra weight to the load, Payton Tolle and Jake Bennett will each blown by their maximum innings pitched in any season of their life if they stay in this rotation through the end of the year (T0lle is within ten innings of that figure right now). So not only are the cupboards bare, but the young arms are about to be pushed to new limits.
When you couple this with the 33 games in 34 days coming up, it becomes clear that the only true way out of this long-term is for the Red Sox to get good injury updates on Ranger Suarez, Connelly Early and Garrett Crochet. If that doesn’t happen fast, this rotation that’s been so good all year is likely going to crack. And unless they instead get Roman Anthony back fast and also add a huge bat at the deadline, this lineup won’t be good enough to save them.
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