It Turns Out That You Need More Than One Start To Evaluate If A Pitcher Sucks Or Not
Drew Pomeranz was acquired by the Boston Red Sox for their top pitching prospect, Anderson Espinoza, and effectively shit his pants in his debut with the team last week, allowing five earned runs in 3+ innings of work.
In typical Red Sox fan fashion, there was a mass overreaction as to whether or not Pomeranz could hack it in the American League, and in the big, bad Boston market. It’s the same shit every single time a new player ends up here. They are judged immediately, almost always on small sample sizes, and the perception sticks, whether or not that particular player eventually comes around. We saw it with Rick Porcello last year, we’re seeing it with David Price this year, and I thought we were headed down that road with Pomeranz after a terrible debut last week.
It was one start. Much like last night was only one start. In his second outing with the Red Sox, Pomeranz was much, much better and pitched like he has been pitching all year for the Padres. The left-hander went 6 innings, and allowed two earned runs on four hits with seven strikeouts. Those two runs came on one swing, his lone mistake pitch of the night, when Jose Iglesias hit the shit out of an 0-1 fastball in the sixth inning for a two-run homer. That was it. Other than that, Pomeranz was as advertised, and lived up to his reputation of a guy who relies heavily on his curveball.
In his first start, Pomeranz threw 20 curveballs in 3+ innings. Last night, he threw 53 curveballs in 6 innings, and got six of his seven strikeouts with the curveball. I wrote last week about how important that pitch is to Pomeranz, as 12 of those 20 curveballs he threw in his first start were balls. Because he couldn’t throw that pitch for a strike, that really threw his whole outing off the rails. That wasn’t the case on Monday night, as Pomeranz threw 36 of 53 curveballs for strikes, and the Tigers were only able to put six of his curveballs in play.
Again, it’s one start, but it’s certainly encouraging after what we saw in his debut. That was the pitcher that the Red Sox thought that they were getting when they gave up their top pitching prospect to get him here.
There has been a lot of talk in recent weeks in regards to where the Red Sox need to upgrade their roster the most as the deadline approaches, and it’s the bullpen. Without question. We know that Dave Dombrowski is a guy who doesn’t like to wait around, and he’ll go and get what he needs as soon as possible, like we saw this past offseason, and again when he was out in front of the pack to acquire Pomeranz. But one of the reasons why I believe Dombrowski hasn’t pulled the trigger on another reliever beyond Brad Ziegler is because the Red Sox want to wait to see what they have in Joe Kelly as a reliever.
I’ve said this before about Kelly, and it’s still true now. He’s the most hittable 100 MPH fastball pitcher I’ve ever seen, and that’s why I said he’s going to be just as disappointing in the bullpen as he was in the rotation. He allows way too many base runners. Kelly AVERAGED 100.12 MPH with his fastball in his one inning of work last night, and still gave up two hits and a run. His max velocity was 101.60 MPH, which was the fastest pitch he’s ever thrown in his entire career, yet he wasn’t fooling anybody.
That’s great to look up at the ballpark radar gun and get all excited when you see 101 MPH, but it means nothing to me if the pitch is flat, and his fastball is flatter than Taylor Swift’s ass. It has no movement, and that’s why he can gas it up all he wants, but he’s not going to be successful as a reliever if there’s no movement on his fastball. He struck out zero batters. How do you throw a baseball at the speed of sound, record three outs, and have none of them be strikeouts? It’s not fair to say it’s not going to work out because of one appearance, but this is not going to work out if his fastball is going to be straight as an arrow.
Now, to the biggest point of this game — the Red Sox fucking lost. Pomeranz pitched well enough to win, but the Red Sox went 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position. They left the bases loaded for what felt like 50 friggin’ times. The top of Boston’s lineup, which consists of Mookie Betts, Dustin Pedroia, Xander Bogaerts and David Ortiz, went 3-for-19 and left a combined 14 men on base. Not that you’re going to get on Betts for one tough night, given the season he’s having, but he went 0-for-5 and left 6 men on base himself. Just not a good night for the Red Sox offense.
Final score: Tigers 4: Red Sox 2