The Red Sox Had A Chance To Take 3 Of 4 From The Angels, But Andrew Cashner Sucks And The Bullpen Couldn't Hold A Lead
The headline says it all. The Red Sox came into Sunday’s series finale against the Angels with a chance to take three of four, but Andrew Cashner sucks and the bullpen couldn’t hold the lead. In theory, this should be a team that the Red Sox take all four from, but as you know, the 2019 team has not performed even remotely close to what the expectations had been back in spring.
After the game, I was pretty heated about the bullpen not being able to hold the lead. Sure, Cashner was brutal but you had a lead with Matt Barnes and Brandon Workman ready to take on the final two innings. Barnes gave up a game-tying home run in the eighth, and then Ryan Weber gave up the game-winning run in the tenth. That sucks, and it’s their job to not do that, but this game really falls on Cashner, who has been about as successful as Pablo Sandoval in a pencil diving contest since coming to Boston. He recorded five outs on Sunday. That’s as many batters as he walked, too. The fuck is Alex Cora supposed to do with that?
Since joining the Red Sox, Cashner has made six starts and has an 8.01 ERA and a 1.91 WHIP. I mean Jesus Christ, dude. The only two starters out of the 86 who qualify that have a worse ERA than Cashner are Masahiro Tanaka (8.10) and Homer Bailey (8.17). Cashner’s WHIP is the worst in the majors since the trade. The Red Sox owe this guy nothing. If they’re actually trying to catch that second Wild Card spot and not just playing out the rest of the string, then they should seriously consider not allowing Cashner to make another start. Seriously, I’ll take anybody. A position player, even.
The outcry on trade deadline day was about the bullpen. While there are surely some holes in the pen that the Red Sox could’ve patched up, we will look back on this season and realize that it was the starters who sank the ship. Per Tom Caron, the Red Sox are 32-11 when they’ve gotten a quality start this year. That’s a .744 winning percentage. Of course, you can’t expect to get a quality start every time out, but the Red Sox have one of the best rotations in the league on paper. They’ve been anything but that in 2019 and it has been a big time fatal flaw.
What kicks you in the nuts even more is that the Red Sox (43) actually have more quality starts than the Yankees (39) this season. That’s where the bullpen makes all the difference. It’s been a collective failure in terms of the pitching this season for Boston, but the Yankees have been able to overcome their lack of starting pitching because when a starter falters, they can turn things over to a lights out bullpen. The Red Sox, on the other hand, do not have that same luxury.
After splitting a four-game series with the Angels, the Red Sox now head to Cleveland to take on the red hot Indians who just erased an 11.5-game deficit in the AL Central. Yup. They were eleven and a half games back of first place on June 2. The Tribe has since gone 42-18, the best record in baseball over a 60-game stretch, to put themselves in a first place tie with the Minnesota Twins after taking three of four from them over the weekend.
See! I wasn’t crazy when I said that it could be done. It’s just that the Indians did it, not the Red Sox. While the Indians were busy mounting the comeback that Red Sox fans dreamed of, Boston just kept droning along like the mediocre, disappointing team that they are this year.