The Red Sox are off to a great start in 2024. Despite dropping five of their last six, they are over .500 at 19-18. They are currently in third place in a division where most observers believe they will finish fourth or fifth. That’s a credit to the leading pitching staff in the majors with a 2.75 earned run average.
Boston’s bullpen looked solid coming into the year, however the rotation was a question mark. It’s not that this team didn’t have talent. It was light on pitchers with a proven track record as starters, however, especially in the backfield Lucas Giolito He went down for the season in Spring Training. That left the Sox relying on a few pitchers who served as nurses in performing important rotation duties. They have been brought so far, by Tanner Houck again Cutter Crawford it’s off to a great start.
Houck and Crawford are the only members of Boston’s season-opening rotation who have not spent time on the injured list. Garrett Whitlock, Brian Bello again Nick Pivetta they all missed the time. (Pivetta returned Wednesday and Bello could return by the weekend.) Houck wasn’t even a lock for Opening Day starting five until Giolito’s injury. By all accounts, the Sox rotation has had to be tough so far.
Instead, they easily lead the majors with a 2.33 ERA. That is at least an indication of their use. Only the White Sox — whose rotation has been one of the league’s worst — have allowed their pitchers to face a third baseman in a slow out. Alex Cora comes to the bullpen early, which takes some of the more high pressure bats in the rotation. But that doesn’t completely detract from how Boston’s starters have worked.
Crawford, 28, appeared in parts of four seasons. He held the exchange position from June onwards, turning in strong if unimpressive results. Over 23 starts, he worked to a 4.51 ERA with an above average rate of 26.2%. It was enough for the Sox to guarantee him a rotation spot even when they expected Giolito to be healthy. He entered 2024 with the season opener for the first time in his career.
The right-hander has doubled up on last year’s success. Through eight starts, he owns a 1.75 ERA that ranks seventh among professional starters. He has trailed 24.3% of opponents and is creating strikeouts at a solid 12.3% clip. Crawford has held opponents to two runs or less in seven of his games.
Crawford is probably not an ace. He doesn’t miss at-bats at the level associated with the game’s top hitters. He is a fly-ball pitcher who will allow a few more home runs during the year. Crawford looks like a legitimate middle-rotation arm, though. He attacks batters with unnecessary stuff – part of a team-wide change in philosophy under new coach Andrew Bailey – and has done an excellent job of not getting out of the barrel. That’s true against lefties and righties alike, making it difficult for opponents to play matchups and allowing him to at least work with two strikes at first.
That has been true for Houck as well, at least this season. Concerns about the right-hander’s low arm angle and heavy reliance on the sink/slide combination led some scouts to put him in the bullpen going back to his college days at Missouri. It’s hard to avoid a big party split with that kind of profile. Left-handed batsmen can target the ball at the start of his delivery. For most of his career, Houck didn’t have a pitch to keep up with opposing southpaws.
Houck started between starts and relievers in his first three-plus seasons. He worked out of the rotation in all 21 appearances last year but struggled to a 5.01 ERA. Managing left-handed batsmen was a real problem. By the end of the 2023 season, Houck had slugged the righty to a .214/.282/.283 batting line after a 27.4% slugging rate. Left-handed hitters have responded producing a .251/.343/.420 slash while striking out 22% of the time. Lefties drew a lot of walks and hit a lot of power against him.
That was not the case this season. While Houck has been better against right-handed hitters in 2024, that’s more a reflection of his overall management than any kind of problem with southpaws. Houck held lefties to a .227/.279/.258 slash in 104 plate appearances. His 21.2% strikeout rate isn’t great, but he has more than halved his walks and pushed his ground ball percentage north of 60%. Even though they are still bowling at a decent clip, left-handed batsmen are not doing any damage. (Houck completely baffled opposing righties, limiting them to a .203/.234/.284 mark behind a massive 31.2% strikeout rate.)
As with Crawford, Houck found that new level by moving away from his heater. Houck has doubled down on the use of his splitter against lefties while dialing back his fastball and cutter. Breakups are nothing new – he’s had them throughout his career – but he’s getting more and more down on them. The uptick in usage suggests Houck is more comfortable with the pitch than ever this year.
Whether Crawford and Houck can maintain a top rotation speed in the middle or better for a full schedule remains to be seen. No pitcher has ever reached 130 major league innings in a season. Competitive players will get used to their heavy reliance on offspeed stuff, and the league’s offense often improves as the weather heats up. They were among the best pitchers in the majors in six weeks, though. These types of exits are necessary for a team to meet expectations and stick in the playoff mix against the odds.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports.
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