September baseball isn’t looking much different than summer baseball for the 2022 Red Sox.
As they continue to lean on their rookie starting pitchers, the Red Sox are seeing one, Brayan Bello, stand out, while others have more work to do.
One of them, Connor Seabold, was given another try on Wednesday night in Cincinnati and it didn’t go well, as he got knocked around for four runs in five innings in a 5-1 loss to the Reds.
The Sox split the series with the last-place Reds and now move on to New York, where they’ll play the Yankees in a four-game series for the final time this year.
The story on Wednesday was Seabold, the fourth of the Red Sox rookie starters, and the one who they’ve been tinkering with in the minors while hoping for better results this time around.
Manager Alex Cora promised that Seabold would come in with a different pitch mix this time, and he wasn’t wrong. Seabold relied more heavily on his slider, which often looks more like a cutter because of its tight action.
The results weren’t great: he threw 24 sliders, induced 11 swings and just one whiff. He otherwise leaned heavily on his 92-mph fastball, which was serviceable but not good enough.
Despite the poor results, Cora said he was pleased.
“I believe he did a good job,” the manager told reporters on NESN after the game. “The pitch mix, we still have to work on it. We can’t be so fastball heavy, especially in the division we play in.
“It’s a good first step. The fastball played early on. The slider was better than expected. The change-up I saw early in the season is still one I want to see more often.”
Seabold, 26, gave up a run in the third on a single by Jonathan India, then gave up three runs in the fifth, when India hit another RBI single and Kyle Farmer blooped one into shallow right that scored two more.
It wasn’t a terrible night for Seabold, who has a good change-up when he can spot it in the right location, but his command needs to be near-perfect for the right-hander to be successful without a power fastball or wipeout breaking pitch.
It was the fifth big league start for Seabold and the numbers are tough to look at: 19 1/3 innings, 21 earned runs with 17 strikeouts and eight walks.
Too many starts by rookie pitchers is the easiest answer when wondering what went wrong with this year’s Red Sox team.
Bello (4.75 ERA) has shown a lot of promise of late, though the injured Josh Winckowski made 14 starts with a 5.75 ERA, the injured Kutter Crawford made 21 appearances (12 starts) with a 5.47 ERA and Seabold has made four starts this year with a 10.47 ERA.
The Sox are among the MLB leaders in starts by rookies (39) while dealing with several injuries to their starting rotation. Chris Sale, Nathan Eovaldi, Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock will all finish the year on the injured list, while James Paxton never threw a single pitch for the Sox this year.
The team is very aware of its pitching issues. In their official press notes for Wednesday’s game, the team 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 great, either, so it isn’t just the rookies who are struggling.
The offense was just as much to blame on Wednesday. They chased a lot of pitches against starter Chase Anderson, who tossed five scoreless innings without walking anybody. He gave up just three hits and struck out four.
The Red Sox didn’t draw a single walk all game. They’ve been MLB-average at drawing walks this year, and it’s a point of focus for Cora, who has preached often this year about his team needing to be more selective at the plate and throw more strikes from the mound.
While the offense was mostly quiet in this one, there was one positive takeaway: Xander Bogaerts was 2 for 4 to move his average to .317.
The Sox will turn to Michael Wacha for Thursday’s series opener against the Yankees.
“We’re ready for it,” Cora said 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.”
