If I had asked before the season began who would have the better starting rotation, the Red Sox or the Mets, is there any question what the answer would have been?
Red Sox: Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, John Lackey, Tim Wakefield, Clay Buchholz and Daisuke Matsuzaka when he got off the disabled list at the start of May.
Mets: Johan Santana and four question marks.
The Mets’ question marks had names – Mike Pelfrey, Oliver Perez, John Maine and Jonathan Niese – but they warranted question marks because who knew how they were going to pitch.
In the first month of the season, Pelfrey has turned his question mark into an exclamation point, joining Santana in leading the Mets’ rotation to performances unexpected and unbelievable. In a 12-game stretch the starters compiled a 1.17 earned run average, and the Mets won nine of the games.
For the season, through April 27, the starters had a 3.45 e.r.a., fifth lowest in the National League. Red Sox starters, meanwhile, had a 5.27 e.r.a., second worst only to the Tigers’ 5.66 in the American League.
No one thought the mediocre Mets starters would prevent the Mets from reaching the playoffs. They had enough other problems that would undermine that effort. But the Red Sox starters were supposed to be the strength of the team. With Red Sox hitters expected to pose some problems, the pitchers were going to claim the post-season invitation for the team.
The day the Red Sox signed Lackey, last Dec, 15, they seemed to be assured of participation in October baseball. If the starting rotation had a hole, Lackey plugged it. The Red Sox gave Lackey $82.5 million for five years to fill that role. With a 5.09 e.r.a. in his first three starts (2-1), however, Lackey hasn’t performed as expected.
But then, neither have Beckett (7.22) and Lester (6.23). Wakefield had a 5.40 e.r.a. and was headed for the bullpen, vacating his starting spot for Matsuzaka. Buchholz, at 2.19, was the only starter who had a respectable e.r.a. The team, in general, had not been respectable.
“It’s really been a little bit of everything, a bit of a malaise on the whole club the first 20 games,” general manager Theo Epstein said. “The most disastrous part has been starting pitching. We should be a lot better. On paper we have a strong rotation and it should be a strength but it’s been a weakness.”
The starters’ ineffectiveness has created problems elsewhere. “The starters inability to go deep into games has had a cascading effect on the bullpen,” Epstein said, citing in particular Hideki Okajima, who had a 7.04 e.r.a. and had allowed 2.2 baserunners per inning.
“Guys are struggling with their delivery,” Epstein added. “It’s something we have to fight through. They’re all going through it at the same time. The important thing is during this stretch we were not playing well. We need to keep our heads above water. If we can stay above .500 in April that’s one thing, but if we’re 6 games under and 10 games out that’s another because of the teams in our division.”
The American League East is like no other. It has three teams of playoff capability, but only two teams from any one division can qualify for post-season play. Two years ago the Rays ambushed the Yankees, who had competed in the playoffs for 13 successive seasons and sent them home early.
The Rays edged the Red Sox by two games for the division title, and the Red Sox finished six games ahead of the Yankees for the wild-card slot. The Yankees’ record was one game better than Minnesota’s who won their division.
The experience was so traumatic for the Yankees that they went out the following winter and spent $423.5 million on Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and A,J. Burnett. They weren’t going to be embarrassed like that again.
The outrageously huge financial commitment paid off. The Yankees returned to the playoffs and won the World Series. The Rays, meanwhile, receded into also-ran status. They finished 11 games behind the wild-card Red Sox and also lagged behind the Tigers, the Rangers ands the Mariners.
But the Rays have sent signals that they are back this year, meaning the intra-division competition should be heated and detrimental to one of the three teams.
Before we pronounce the Red Sox as the odd-team-out, though, remember that we are talking about 20 games of the 162-game season. There’s plenty of time for the Boston starters to correct themselves, just as there is plenty of time for the Mets’ starters to reclaim their question-mark status.
Matsuzaka’s return to the rotation could spur the Red Sox, especially if he pitches the way he did in 2008 when he had an 18-3 record and a 2.90 e.r.a. Matsuzaka’s return enabled the Red Sox to put Wakefield in the bullpen where, Epstein said, “we don’t have a reliever to give us multiple innings and Wake will give us that.”
The Red Sox starting corps could yet perform as advertised. It’s more likely to happen than not happen. Whether the pitchers will make the Red Sox good enough to overcome the Rays and/or the Yankees is another question. As Epstein said, the Red Sox can’t afford to fall too far behind no matter how much time is left in the season.
There’s far too much of the season, on the other hand, left for the Mets. They won’t surpass or match the streak that put them into the N.L. East lead. That reality prompted the e-mail general manager Omar Minaya received from a friend after the Mets had completed a three-game sweep of the Dodgers that gave them a seven-game winning streak.
“My advice for you: resign immediately,” the friend wrote. “It’s not going to get better than this. If they should go on to win the division, make the playoffs or even win the World Series, it will always be said that it was the team that Omar Minaya put together.”