Five teams had as many as three pitchers with 200 innings: the Angels (Dan Haren, Jered Weaver, Ervin Santana), the Brewers (Randy Wolf, Yovani Gallardo, Shaun Marcum), the Phillies (Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels), Diamondbacks (Dan Hudson, Ian Kennedy, Joe Saunders) and the Giants (Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Madison Bumgarner). The Brewers, Diamondbacks, and Phillies made the playoffs.
The concept is simple: The more innings your starters log, the less pressure there is on your bullpen, which is usually made up of inferior pitchers.
The Red Sox, who missed the playoffs by one game, had an innings problem from their starters. While you’d love to get 1,000 innings out of your five starters, the Sox got only 663 1/3 innings from the five original starters (Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz, John Lackey, and Daisuke Matsuzaka).
Beckett’s 193 innings and Lester’s 191 2/3 were 1-2 on the staff. Buchholz gave them only 82 2/3 before going down with a back injury. Lackey gave them 160 horrible innings, and the Sox had to rely on Tim Wakefield to give them 137 1/3 starter innings. Fill-ins Wakefield, Andrew Miller, Alfredo Aceves, Erik Bedard, and Kyle Weiland accounted for 276 1/3 innings, a 15-17 record, and a 5.44 ERA. Ouch.
Looking ahead, the Sox could go into the season with a rotation of Beckett, Lester, Buchholz, Daniel Bard, and Aceves. It’s difficult to see 1,000 innings there, especially if Bard spends his first season as a starter building up his innings.
Aceves also is relatively new to it, having made only nine career starts. He was 1-1 with a 5.14 ERA in four starts last season, though overall he did pitch a career-high 114 innings, so his buildup might not be as severe.
Nothing says either can’t give you respectable back-of-the-rotation innings, but it’s still a big “if.’’
Of course, the Red Sox aren’t completely through with player acquisition. And they have signed veteran Carlos Silva to a minor league deal.
