He isn’t able to provide much length yet - he’s thrown more than 90 pitches in a single outing just once this year - but he’s turned into a reliable option for the Red Sox beleaguered rotation.The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. After bouncing between the bullpen and rotation in his first full season in the majors last year, he has solidified his role as a starter by cutting his walk rate by three points. Of those four secondary pitches, his sweeper shows the most promise even though it’s still developing. He also mixes in a splitter and curveball and has dabbled with adding a sweeper to his repertoire in addition to his more traditional gyro slider. Along with his four-seam fastball, it makes an effective pair of pitches that he can locate to either side of the plate. He allowed three hits and five walks while striking out seven.įirst of all, yes, Kutter Crawford throws a cutter. He lacks the pinpoint control to be able to stay on the edges of the strike zone and that remains his one remaining development hurdle.īello held the Mariners to a single run in five innings in his last outing against them in Boston. He’s gotten some of his command issues worked out this year, but that’s meant he’s locating his pitches in the zone more often, leading to more contact. Unfortunately, he’s also prone to allowing really hard contact if he leaves any of his pitches up in the zone. A diving sinker, and nasty changeup, and a slider with tons of drop help him generate tons of contact on the ground. In his previous outing against the M’s, he allowed four runs in 5.1 innings.īrayan Bello seemingly has all the tools he needs to develop into a frontline starter for the Red Sox but has been unable to put it all together through parts of two seasons in the big leagues. Since then, he’s been used out of the bullpen both as a short-stint reliever and a bulk pitcher behind an opener. Pivetta’s last traditional start was back in May against the Mariners. He’s dabbled with adding a cutter and changeup to his arsenal but neither pitch is ready for primetime which means he’s left at the whims of his fastball. When his heater is working, it’ll generate plenty of whiffs at the top of the zone, but his command is spotty enough that the pitch will leak down in the zone pretty often leading to tons of loud contact. He’s always possessed a pair of strong breaking balls but his fastball has been inconsistent and he’s lacked a offspeed pitch to round out his repertoire. Nick Pivetta has enjoyed a bit of a resurgence in Boston after flaming out in Philadelphia a few years ago. Photo by Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images Casas is a #2 prospect who struggled early in the year, but has begun to put it together recently, looking as good as promised. Rafael Devers brings the power, and two Red Sox are in the conversation for AL Rookie of the Year, Masataka Yoshida and recently Triston Casas. Almost all the other spots in Boston’s lineup are likewise filled with above-average hitters, the only holes being at catcher and (temporarily) shortstop. Duran leads the team with 2.6 fWAR and 21 stolen bases. The 26-year-old came up from the minors to play center field when Adam Duvall was injured earlier in the season, and he’s been tearing it up ever since. The breakout leader of the Red Sox offense this year has turned out to be outfielder Jarren Duran. Story will finally return soon, perhaps just one game after the Red Sox leave Seattle. Enrique Hernández, who was hitting poorly as the team’s regular shortstop with Trevor Story injured, was traded to the Dodgers last week, and the Mariners will see a fill-in at that position. Since May, the Red Sox pitching has improved statistically given the frequency with which they’ve scheduled bullpen games and the level of work their bullpen has gotten recently, however, those stats may not bear out this series. This series also happens to be one of the last opportunities the Mariners have to directly make up ground against a fellow non-AL West Wild Card hopeful. Now there are solid reasons to consider both sides of the question of a Red Sox run this season, and our sister site breaks those down nicely. While they looked to be out of contention and readying to sell at the end of June, things look different on the other side of a 15-7 start to July. 533 record is only good enough for fourth place in the AL East– with the fifth-place Yankees just a game behind! That said, Boston is eight games out of the lead in their division and just 2.5 back of the third Wild Card spot. Just like we said when we played them in May, “the Boston Red Sox suffer from being a fine team in the winningest division in the league.” They’re 56-49, but a.
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