I feel like one thing that hasn't been mentioned yet, that both Tim and Joe were astute about on the radio, was the recent schedule the Sox played prior to this mini-swoon (sic: we're bitching about a
4-6 stretch during a historically great season?? Nice luxury. Second opponent sweep all season, in late August, with the best record in baseball. My violin!)
So, keep in mind, as recently as three weeks ago, the Sox were winning stupid games they shouldn't have. The portion of the schedule I want to highlight is what happened immediately after the 19-12 grind-it-out slugfest win over Baltimore August 10th. Yeah, of course, it's the Orioles post trade deadline, and the pitching staff is especially weak, but nonetheless, what kind of win expectancy do teams have when their starting pitcher gets eight outs while giving up eight runs, or down five with eighteen outs left to use?
They used six relievers, and five threw 14+ pitches, three threw 20+.
Then, they played a day-night road doubleheader. And, surprisingly (at least to me), they didn't farm out for a second fresh reliever, opting to only add Cuevas as the 26th player. They won both those games. They used three relievers in the first game and six in the second. They used Cuevas in the nightcap, up three in the 8th.
Then, they played a day game after this, again without making roster moves - this was the last Sale start, and they still had to get 12 outs from the bullpen despite all the K's and apparent dominance. Makes you wonder if they saw this as the only super important part of the schedule across the remainder of August after how they started the month (explains the return to the DL right after, doesn't it?)
So I'm not specifically pointing out the bullpen as a culprit, I'm just saying imagine what that was like for the position players, if not the pitching staff itself. Also, note we didn't get Swihart back until the Philly 2-game set, so Sandy was ridden very hard. And the pitch counts for these days were kind of high stress.
Pitcher - TU 8/7 - W 8/8 - TH 8/9 -F 8/10 - SA 8/11 (DH) - SU 8/12 (day)
Workman - 16 - x - 10 - 24 - 21 - x
Pomeranz - 84 - x - x - 20 - 30 - x
Hembree - 3 - x - x - 27 - 20 - x
Brasier - x - 17 - x - 8 - 13 - 9
Barnes - 19 - x - x - 14 - 13 - 20
Kelly - 16 - 16 - x - 16 - 22 - x
Thornburg - 17 - x - 24 - x - 13 - 24
Kimbrel - 22 - x - x - x - 21 - 25
B. Johnson - x - 98 - x - x - x - 16
Velazquez - x - x - 25 - x - 41 - x
Cuevas - avail. 8/11 only, got eighth inning of 6-3 lead - that alone tells you something
Some things stand out here:
* Workman, Brasier and Kelly all got used on four of five days in a row.
* Workman, Brasier and Barnes all pitched three days in a row.
* Thornburg was used three of four days in a row (so was Kimbrel, used to lock down 2-1 win G1 in Philly the following TU).
* Pomeranz threw 50 pitches on back-to-back days, beginning the stretch on two days rest from an 84 pitch start.
* Velazquez starting the second game of DH was aggressive, as he threw 41 pitches on 1 day rest after throwing 25 in relief on Thursday.
* Perhaps less egregiously, Johnson was used on three days rest after throwing 98 in his Wednesday start.
We cheated with the 5th starters to get through that stretch. We also went 6-1 across that 7 game / 6 day stretch, which is just very, very good, regardless of opponent.
Then you go right into a funky day off/2 game road series (which OF/DH do you sit?)/day off and the 4-6 we just had, against two above .500 teams. I think we're doing just fine. Guys are just either pretty tired or out of rhythm from a weird schedule setup. We would've weathered this fine if we had randoms like Travis, Wright, Poyner, Lin, etc. up here right now. They'll be fine, cool ya jets.
