Cora defends his beleaguered starting pitchers

OAKLAND — It’s hard to imagine this can continue much longer for the Red Sox rotation.

Those first four starts in Seattle had to be a statistical anomaly, right? There can’t be any way Chris Sale, Nathan Eovaldi, Eduardo Rodriguez and Rick Porcello are going to be pounded like this for a full 162 games.

That’s certainly the feeling inside the Boston clubhouse, and you wouldn’t expect anything else from a club coming off its ninth World Series [...]

OAKLAND — It’s hard to imagine this can continue much longer for the Red Sox rotation.

Those first four starts in Seattle had to be a statistical anomaly, right? There can’t be any way Chris Sale, Nathan Eovaldi, Eduardo Rodriguez and Rick Porcello are going to be pounded like this for a full 162 games.

That’s certainly the feeling inside the Boston clubhouse, and you wouldn’t expect anything else from a club coming off its ninth World Series title. Sale, Eovaldi and Porcello — along with David Price, Monday night’s starter against the Athletics — were among the driving forces as the Red Sox outclassed the Dodgers in just five games last October. That they reentered the baseball landscape five months later with such a thud was jarring, as the Mariners hammered their way to three victories at T-Mobile Park.

“I’ll run those guys out there every time,” first baseman Mitch Moreland said. “Our starters are some of the best in the league. Just because it didn’t go their way for a couple of games doesn’t mean that’s the way the season is going to go.”

Boston’s starters completed just 15 innings against Seattle, leaving the bullpen to cover another 18. Brian Johnson worked three times in the series, unusual for someone designated as one of the club’s two expected long relievers entering the season. Matt Barnes and Ryan Brasier, the two co-favorites to serve as the closer, faced a mere seven batters.

“We didn’t get innings from the starters, and that’s hard to do,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “The only positive out of the whole weekend was the bullpen. They did an outstanding job.”

Cora was on the defensive on Sunday after Porcello was tagged for nine runs in a 10-8 defeat. There was one less trip through the rotation this spring for the starters after their extended run in 2018, with the Red Sox coaching staff hoping to keep them fresh this season. Attempting to connect any lack of sharpness due to an absence of work in Fort Myers was an idea quickly shut down by the manager.

“It was the same plan,” Cora said. “Whoever is doubting us, what we did this year — check what happened last year. We did the same thing.”

Home runs have been the bane of Boston’s existence so far. The Mariners slugged eight round-trippers against Red Sox starters, including three apiece against Sale and Eovaldi. Tim Beckham caught up to a pair of Sale fastballs out over the plate and Edwin Encarnacion crushed a changeup at the belt away.

“Most of the pitches were just out over the plate,” Sale said. “You get behind guys, you get even in the count, you’ve got to attack a little bit more.”

Johnson picked up the victory on Friday, striking out the side in the bottom of the eighth and giving Moreland a chance to win it with a pinch-hit three-run homer in the ninth. The left-hander pitched another 2 1/3 innings on Sunday, allowing only a Jay Bruce solo homer to right. That’s the lone run conceded by Boston’s bullpen over its last 14 innings, and the Mariners went 8-for-48 at the plate against them over the final three games of the series.

“I think it’s all part of being ready,” Johnson said. “I think that’s part of your job. It doesn’t matter if it’s the first inning or the ninth inning. You’ve got to be ready. People are going to have off days. When they come, just be ready.”  

bkoch@providencejournal.com

On Twitter: @BillKoch25