September baseball isn’t wanting a lot totally different than summer season baseball for the 2022 Red Sox.
As they proceed to lean on their rookie beginning pitchers, the Red Sox are seeing one, Brayan Bello, stand out, whereas others have extra work to do.
One of them, Connor Seabold, was given one other strive on Wednesday night time in Cincinnati and it didn’t go properly, as he obtained knocked round for 4 runs in 5 innings in a 5-1 loss to the Reds.
The Sox break up the collection with the last-place Reds and now transfer on to New York, the place they’ll play the Yankees in a four-game collection for the ultimate time this yr.
The story on Wednesday was Seabold, the fourth of the Red Sox rookie starters, and the one who they’ve been tinkering with within the minors whereas hoping for higher outcomes this time round.
Manager Alex Cora promised Seabold would are available in with a special pitch combine this time, and he wasn’t improper. Seabold relied extra closely on his slider, which frequently appears extra like a cutter due to its tight motion.
The outcomes weren’t nice: he threw 24 sliders, induced 11 swings and only one whiff. He in any other case leaned closely on his 92 mph fastball, which was serviceable however not ok.
Despite the poor outcomes, Cora mentioned he was happy.
“I believe he did a good job,” the supervisor informed reporters on NESN after the sport. “The pitch combine, we nonetheless should work on it. We can’t be so fastball heavy, particularly within the division we play in.
“It’s a good first step. The fastball played early on. The slider was better than expected. The changeup I saw early in the season is still one I want to see more often.”
Seabold, 26, gave up a run within the third on a single by Jonathan India, then gave up three runs within the fifth, when India hit one other RBI single and Kyle Farmer blooped one into shallow proper that scored two extra.
It wasn’t a horrible night time for Seabold, who has a very good changeup when he can spot it in the correct location, however his command must be close to good for the right-hander to achieve success and not using a energy fastball or wipeout breaking pitch.
“I thought I made a lot of good pitches,” Seabold mentioned on NESN. “Got a lot of soft contact tonight. I think six singles, none of them were hit over 85 mph. They put them in the right spot. Nothing I can do about that. Tough luck.”
It was the fifth massive league begin for Seabold and the numbers are robust to take a look at: 19 1/3 innings, 21 earned runs with 17 strikeouts and eight walks.
“I think I went down to Triple-A again with a bunch of stuff to work on and I thought I did a really good job of coming back and showing what I worked on,” he informed reporters.
Too many begins by rookie pitchers is the best reply when questioning what went improper with this yr’s Red Sox group.
Bello (4.75 ERA) has proven loads of promise of late, although the injured Josh Winckowski made 14 begins with a 5.75 ERA, the injured Kutter Crawford made 21 appearances (12 begins) with a 5.47 ERA and Seabold has made 4 begins this yr with a ten.47 ERA.
The Sox are among the many MLB leaders in begins by rookies (39) whereas coping with a number of accidents to their beginning rotation. Chris Sale, Nathan Eovaldi, Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock will all end the yr on the injured listing, whereas James Paxton by no means threw a single pitch for the Sox this yr.
The group may be very conscious of its pitching points. In their official press notes for Wednesday’s sport, the group wrote that “22 of the Red Sox’ (last) 35 games have been started by non-rookies…In those 22 games, Sox starting pitchers have a 3.49 ERA.”
Veteran Rich Hill (4.70 ERA) hasn’t been nice, both, so it isn’t simply the rookies who’re struggling.
The offense was simply as a lot guilty on Wednesday. They chased loads of pitches in opposition to starter Chase Anderson, who tossed 5 scoreless innings with out strolling anyone. He gave up simply three hits and struck out 4.
The Red Sox didn’t draw a single stroll all sport. They’ve been MLB-average at drawing walks this yr, and it’s some extent of focus for Cora, who has preached usually this yr about his group needing to be extra selective on the plate and throw extra strikes from the mound.
While the offense was principally quiet on this one, there was one constructive takeaway: Xander Bogaerts was 2-for-4 to maneuver his common to .317, tied with Aaron Judge for the American League lead.
The Sox will flip to Michael Wacha for Thursday’s collection opener in opposition to the Yankees.
“We’re ready for it,” Cora mentioned on NESN. “We’re back to the East. They’ve done damage against us so we have a chance to play good baseball and see where it takes us. Our goal is to win every series. That’s our goal.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com