Red Sox Manager Alex Cora told reporters Cutter Crawford would be the Sox starter for game four of the season when his crew takes the field against the Pirates on April third. What we, well I once hoped would be a six man rotation has become once again a patchworked classic five man group that the sox will need to tread water while veterans James Paxton ( hamstring ) Garret Whitlock ( Hip ) and youngster Brian Bello ( forearm ) start the season on the 2023 season on the DL.
Cora and the team will head north with this rotation
1. Corey Kluber, RHP ( 2.13 ERA, 14K, 5BB. in 12 spring innings.)
2. Chris Sale, LHP ( 5.40 ERA 9 K 1 BB. in 10 spring innings.)
3. Tanner Houck, RHP ( 8.31 ERA, 21 K , 10 BB in 17.1 spring innings. )
4. Kutter Crawford, RHP ( 2.03 ERA, 14 K , 3 BB in 13.1 spring innings.)
5. Nick Pivetta, RHP ( 7.71 ERA, 16 K , 7 BB in 11.2 spring innings )
Not exactly the 1998 Atlanta Braves. But after another off season of clearance sale shopping by Chaim Bloom pretty close to what we all expected when camp opened. Kluber will take the hill in the opener against the Orioles. We already knew that. Sale will be used to sell as many Fenway seats as his name can in game two. Houck will go in game three after a rocky to say the least spring. Crawford, who will likely be the odd man out once the reinforcements start trickling in during the first weeks of the season, will take the ball for game 4 and Pivetta will be the man on the turn.
When Whitlock - Bello - and Paxton get back things should look quite different. As I said earlier Crawford is the most likely to go out beyond right field into the pen as a long reliever but if he continues to pitch well and someone else falters that could easily change. The pen has its own injury issues piling up as Joely Rodriguez (oblique strain ) and Wyatt Mills being shut down with (elbow inflammation.) Muddying those troubled waters. When the medium size three ( you can't call them a big three ) get back, Cora - Bloom and Sam Kennedy will have some serious juggling to do. Could they go to a six man rotation? Who will go out to the pen ? Who will get sent down to AAA Worcester ? But these are questions hopefully for another day.
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