Red Sox 6-Man Rotation? Pitching Coach Not Ruling It Out After Big Moves
All of a sudden, the Red Sox have more starting pitchers than they know what to do with.
After adding Garrett Crochet (trade) and Walker Buehler (signing) this offseason, Boston could have tough decisions to make with its rotation if everyone makes it through spring training healthy. The potential second-half return of Patrick Sandoval could further complicate matters, but the Red Sox will cross that bridge if it's ever built.
During a recent conversation with MassLive's Sean McAdam, Boston pitching coach Andrew Bailey indicated the Red Sox could try a six-man rotation.
"The reality is, there's 162 games in front of us and if we look up and everybody makes 25-30 starts, we'll be in a really, really good spot," Bailey told McAdam. "Somebody's going to have 22, somebody's going to have 26, somebody's going to have 27, somebody's going to have 30. We don't know what the future holds.
"But to be able to go into the season with multiple starters who had 30 starts last year, with a guy who's in the upper echelon with stuff (Crochet) and we've got Walker coming back, I feel really confident with where we're at. Getting into the season, it's always kind of a tricky area to navigate. There's off days, there's travel days. You have guys feeling, 'Oh my God, I haven't started in nine days.' Getting into the season is going to be kind of tricky.
"We'll see how it plays out during the season, whether it's a five-man (rotation), a six-man ... whatever it looks like. Those answers will come based on how we get to the starting blocks in terms of the season. But in a perfect world, we have all these guys lined up, ready to go and they're in a good spot to take start after start after start."
The Red Sox are set to enter spring training with at least nine pitchers who could compete for spots in the initial rotation: Crochet, Buehler, Tanner Houck, Bryan Bello, Lucas Giolito, Kutter Crawford, Richard Fitts, Quinn Priester and Cooper Criswell.
It remains to be seen whether Giolito will be ready for opening day, but the veteran righty recently said he'll be a full-go for the first full-squad workout. Criswell also is a rotation longshot, and Priester and Fitts might need additional seasoning in Triple-A. Still, if Giolito and Crawford both perform well during the spring, the Red Sox will have to move one of them to the bullpen or roll with a six-man rotation.
These things have a way of sorting themselves out over the spring, so we'll see how it goes. Plus, rostering too many viable starting pitchers is a good problem to have.
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