The Boston Red Sox have failed to come close to repeating their championship exploits of 2018, and in the mind of team president Dave Dombrowski, a lot of that is down to starting pitching.
The Red Sox built a high-priced rotation that includes Chris Sale, David Price, and Rick Porcello, but expectations simply have not been met in 2019.
“We built our ballclub for them to be our strong suit,” Dombrowski said, via Alex Speier of the Boston Globe. “I don’t think it’s been what we expected or hoped.
“They’ve been OK. But I can’t say they’ve really carried us at any point. The bullpen keeps getting pointed to all the time, I think a lot of times unfairly. It’s just that collectively, in a lot of places, we haven’t done as well as we hoped.”
Porcello and Price are both former Cy Young winners, and Sale is one of the best lefties in the sport. Only Price has an ERA below 4, but he’s been limited to 78.1 innings. On the whole, Boston’s starters have a 4.70 ERA.
The Red Sox are reportedly in the hunt for relievers, and understandably so, but Dombrowski has a point that the rotation’s struggles have put a bit more on the shoulders of that bullpen.
