Sox' hopes rest on the rotation

By Chris Maza
Fan Fanatic Sports Staff

Piitching still wins championships. So where does that leave the Boston Red Sox?

The Red Sox should be thanking the baseball gods they are in the position they are in as far as the standings are concerned, especially with the dismal efforts put forth by the starting pitching this season.

As a unit, Red Sox starters - Tim Wakefield, Josh Beckett, Brad Penny, Jon Lester, Justin Masterson and Daisuke Matsuzaka have a combined 5.34 ERA in their starts. Tim Wakefield holds the best ERA among the starters despite last night's blow up at 4.55 (Yes, Masterson has a 4.22 ERA, but as a starter, he's at 4.58)

Remarkably, despite those numbers, the Sox starters still hold a 57 percent winning percentage (21-16) and the team's 28 wins are tied for second in the American League and its .571 winning percentage is third in the AL behind the Yankees (.583) and the Rangers (.604).

A large part of the thanks needs to go to the offense, which, despite the atrocious batting of David Ortiz, is in the AL's top 5 in batting average (3rd), on base percentage (2nd), slugging (3rd), runs (5th), home runs (5th) and RBIs (5th). Jason Bay has been enormous this year and is currently on pace to best any season Manny Ramirez put together in Boston in terms of run production. Is he going to maintain that pace? No. He's already showing signs of slowing down, but will still finish with the best numbers of his career. Even with a stint on the DL, Kevin Youkilis has been able to pick up right where he left off last season and Dustin Pedroia is being that sparkplug in the No. 2 slot. Even Mike Lowell, who was a big enough liability over the offseason that the team made a strong push for Mark Teixiera, and Jason Varitek, who got zero bites on the free agent martket, are producing.

And there can be no complaints about the bullpen, which has been one of, if not THE stongest in baseball.

There is no reason why the starting rotation can't turn it around. Josh Beckett has already shown signs of improvement. In his last five starts, the Red Sox ace has a 3-0 record and the team is 4-1, the only loss being a 3-2 defeat at the hands of the Mets. In those starts, he's allowed nine earned runs in 34 innings (a 2.38 ERA), going at least seven innings in his last three outings. Brad Penny will be no savior, but ever since blowing up for seven runs in 2.2 innings, he has pitched well enough to win, and has. He's 3-1 in the month of May with a 4.41 ERA. It's not earth-shattering, but what more could any team expect from the fourth starter? Tim Wakefield is being what he has always been and at points this season, he has saved the bullpen from implosion from over work while other starters struggled to get through five innings.

The X factors remain Lester and Matsuzaka. The former has shown good stuff, but seems to have hit that mental block he had when he first came up - when things go bad, he can't prevent them from going REALLY bad. The latter, however, is hard to figure out. He's just a mess. If the Red Sox hope to keep pace with the surging Yankees, these two have to get it together. John Smoltz is not going to come back and light the world on fire and while he's throwing near-no-no's against AAA batters, Clay Bucholtz is not a lock, either. Two seasons ago Beckett, Lester and Dice-K led the Red Sox to the promised land. It's going to take all three of them to get them back there.