If this Red Sox team has a glaring weakness, it's their starting pitching. Their starters have a combined ERA of 4.11, which ranks them 9th in the league and 20th overall. Those aren't championship-caliber numbers. Not even close. The average AL team's starting pitchers' ERA is 3.98, making the Red Sox rotation's number below average. The reason they're in first place in the league (as of tonight, however, only by a single game) is their offense, defense, and bullpen. After Lester and Beckett, the drop-off in the rotation is pretty steep. With Buchholz shelved for the season with a stress fracture in his back, the team will have to look to Erik Bedard to provide a reliable presence as the #3 starter. That's a lot to ask of a guy coming off a knee injury and having to adjust to a new team in a large market with sky-high expectations.
Tonight, neither the starter (the maddeningly inconsistent John Lackey) nor the relievers (Daniel Bard and Matt Albers) could keep the ball in the ballpark. The Tribe clubbed 4 dingers off Red Sox pitching: 2 off Lackey, 1 off Bard and 1 off Albers. Let's hope this was just a bad night and not the start of a trend. NESN, with whom I usually have no problem, tempted fate to the nth degree by repeating a few too many times statistics on how long Bard and Albers had gone without giving up a run.
The Red Sox starting pitching is going to have to improve if they are to hang on to the division lead and play deep into October. Had Lackey rose to the occasion tonight and pitched a quality start, it could have taken some of the pressure off Bedard to stabilize the rotation.
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