Since His Decisions Are Now Costing The Red Sox Games, Can We Talk About Firing John Farrell Now?
I already bitched about how John Farrell was fucking today’s game up before it even started, having Brock Holt on the bench against a left-handed starter, even though he hits lefties better than righties, and he already had an off-day yesterday. Not only that, but the Red Sox are 6-3 when Holt starts, and 0-3 when he sits.
But let’s do a rundown of Farrell’s fuck-ups in just the last 24 hours alone.
Chris Young hit .182 with a .585 OPS against right-handed pitching last year, and he’s 0-for-8 with 6 strikeouts against right-handed pitching this year. He got the start against a right-handed pitcher on Sunday, and went 0-for-4 with 3 strikeouts, including a strikeout in the bottom of the ninth when they had Holt available on the bench. Farrell said that Young needed to “get his swings in” because the Red Sox have two lefty starters coming up on Monday and Tuesday. Has this motherfucker ever heard of a batting cage? Get your shitty swings in against right-handed pitching when the Red Sox aren’t trying to win baseball games.
In that same ninth inning, Farrell let Ryan Hanigan hit with two outs, and the game on the line when he had Dustin Pedroia on the bench, who was also available to hit. Pedroia is 1-for-2 with a walk against Roberto Osuna, who got Hanigan to line out to end the game.
That brings us to today. Farrell explained before the start of the game that Holt was on the bench because he wanted righty hitters against the lefty pitcher, J.A. Happ, yet he has Travis Shaw, a lefty hitter, batting cleanup. And don’t get me wrong — Shaw should absolutely be hitting against left-handed pitching. Shaw hit .329 with a .975 OPS against left-handed pitching last year. My problem with this is, why the fuck were you pinch hitting Chris Young for Shaw the first two weeks of the season when he was due to face a lefty, and now magically he’s good enough to bat cleanup against a left-handed starter? What the fuck are you doing, John? Do you even know?
The Red Sox finally get a solid start from Clay Buchholz (6.2 innings, 6 hits, 0 ER, 2 SO), and Farrell gives him the hook after allowing a two-out single in the seventh inning. Buchholz was at 97 pitches, he was cruising all day long, and Farrell decides to go to Junichi Tazawa. Why not let Buchholz get one more guy to finish the inning? Instead, Tazawa gets Ryan Goins to ground out to end the inning, and then he doesn’t bring Tazawa back out for the eighth, even though he only threw two pitches. He, instead, decides to go with Koji Uehara to make his fourth appearance in the Red Sox last five games, even though the Red Sox said they were going to take it easy with him, because, you know, he’s 41 years old. Single, walk, ground out, hit by pitch, walk, day over.
After Koji runs out of gas, Farrell calls upon his closer, asking him to record five outs, the first time that he’s been asked to record five outs or more since April 21, 2011 — a solid five years ago. If you bring Kimbrel into the game to start an inning with the bases empty, like you’re supposed to do with a closer, nine times out of ten, he’s going to lock down that inning for you. But the bottom line is that Kimbrel is a little bit wild. He’s going to walk his fair share of guys. That’s going to happen. But the fact is that he’s going to work out of those jams and punch out a bunch of batters before the base runners he allows get the chance to score.
But if you bring him into a bases loaded situation with one out in the eighth, his margin for error has decreased substantially, and then you get what you got on Monday. Kimbrel strikes out Edwin Encarnacion, the same batter he made look silly in the ninth inning on Saturday, but then he walks Troy Tulowitzki to force in a run. That should be runner on first, one out. Base hit to Russell Martin, two runs score. That should be first and third, one out. He strikes out Ryan Goins for the third out, and Kevin Pillar would’ve been up next, who has never faced Kimbrel before, so that goes in the pitcher’s favor. Again, if you give Kimbrel a clean inning, and not a bases loaded, one-out jam, you’re more than likely getting a shutdown inning. Instead of bringing Tazawa back for the eighth, which he was more than capable of doing after only throwing two pitches in the seventh, you misuse Koji, you misuse Kimbrel, and that was the ballgame.
Also, just for good measure, Farrell started Josh Rutledge at third base instead of Holt. And while third base isn’t Holt’s best position, I’ve never seen him airmail a throw into the stands like Rutledge did, giving Pillar second base. In fairness, Pillar probably still would’ve reached at first, but it was a 1-0 game in the 8th inning, and Rutledge should’ve eaten that throw. Instead, he put a runner in scoring position, who later scored. The Red Sox lost by one run, so there ya go.
However, huge props to Buchholz for his start today. You could chalk a little bit of it up to luck, given that he got four ground ball double plays behind him, three of which came from Jose Bautista, so there had to be a little bit of luck involved there. But there’s no doubt that the Christian Vazquez Effect is real, and it’s going to be a difference maker with these Red Sox starters moving forward.
Lastly, this is why Dennis Eckersley is the best. You’ve got Tim Wakefield (love you) over here making excuses for these Red Sox pitchers, and Eck could not be more appalled by it.
