A lot can change in a month, and the Boston Red Sox are finding out the hard way.
After being shut out by the lowly Tampa Bay Rays on Wednesday, the Red Sox enter Thursday with a 42-36 record. They went 10-16 in the month of June, transforming their two-game lead over the Baltimore Orioles in the American League East into a 5 1/2-game deficit.
It’s been an up-and-down season to date for Boston, which still boasts the highest-scoring offense in baseball and is in the thick of the AL wild-card race. But one constant has remained since Opening Day: The Red Sox are thin on starting pitching.
The last four games alone have featured Clay Buchholz deliver another underwhelming start, Eduardo Rodriguez demoted to Triple-A Pawtucket after a rough outing and ace David Price continue in his struggles to regain peak form. With the exception of knuckleballer Steven Wright and right-hander Rick Porcello, the Red Sox’s rotation has been largely inconsistent.
Boston’s pitching hasn’t benefited from the best luck — Rodriguez missed all of spring training with a dislocated knee, and Joe Kelly has dealt with injuries for much of the season. Even the bullpen has taken its lumps, with newly acquired reliever Carson Smith expected to miss the rest of the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery.
But the team clearly needs reinforcements on the pitching front, whether it be internal or external. Given Boston’s underwhelming 4.36 team ERA as of Thursday, the latter might be a better strategy for Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski with Major League Baseball’s July 31 non-waiver trade deadline about a month away.
Dombrowski has admitted things have been pretty slow to date on the trade market, but if a starting pitcher becomes available — the Oakland Athletics’ Sonny Gray, the Atlanta Braves’ Julio Teheran and the Tampa Bay Rays’ Matt Moore are a few players who could be on the move — the Red Sox should jump at the opportunity.
The potential for a trade is only one part of what should be an important month for Boston. The team will play 13 of its 21 games in July against teams below .500, starting with a three-game set Friday against the Los Angeles Angels, who own the AL’s second-worst record. The Red Sox haven’t played well recently, but they can get right back on track by taking care of business in their nine games before the All-Star break and carrying that momentum into the second half of the season.
While the last month hasn’t been kind to Boston, there’s still a lot to like about the 2016 Red Sox. David Ortiz still is having an historic final season, Xander Bogaerts and Mookie Betts continue to produce at All-Star levels, and Travis Shaw and Hanley Ramirez each showed signs this week that they’re turning things around after recent slumps. Brock Holt’s expected return this weekend should give a boost to the team’s thin left field, and Chris Young should provide more depth when he returns after the All-Star break.
If the Red Sox can get their pitching affairs in order, this could be a team to be reckoned with down the stretch. But at the moment, that’s still a big “if.”
Thumbnail photo via Kim Klement/USA TODAY Sports Images
