Are the Sox starters as bad as they seem?

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At what point can the Red Sox wait to address their AL-worst starting corps (or should I say corpse?), second-last in the bigs with a 5.81 ERA? Even the Yankees are faring better with a 5.64 ERA.

Yes, Jon Lester has been burned by his defense — but he still has an ugly 6.31 ERA.

Yes, Josh Beckett has the stuff and movement to grab everyone’s attention, but that command is another story. He’s at a 6.42 ERA. Brad Penny has been wildly inconsistent so far although he’s checked in with four quality starts out of a possible six. Still, his ERA is 6.90. Justin Masterson entered last night’s game with a 5.48 ERA.

Of course, Dice-K was so bad he was hurriedly put on the disabled list.

Only Tim Wakefield has escaped scorn, with a sterling 2.93 ERA.

ERA doesn’t tell the whole story, however. FIP tells a far better story, as FIP stands for Fielding Independent Pitching. In other words, how do pitchers fare on things they can control (walks, strikeouts, home runs, etc)? Let’s find out.

It’s unsurprising to see that Wakefield’s ERA is a fluke, but his 4.14 FIP is still excellent and is very near his 4.13 ERA in 181 innings last year.

Brad Penny isn’t pitching very well even with FIP, and it just further strengthens the common perception in these parts that Penny will lose his job when the Red Sox return to full strength in the rotation. (Granted, that could be never.)

If the Sox get Dice-K and John Smoltz back, the club may opt to deal Penny for a piece they need (as Tim theorized yesterday) and use Masterson, Clay Buchholz and Michael Bowden as their backups.

But I digress…

The FIPs for Lester and Beckett are extremely encouraging. It goes to show that they’ve been rather unlucky as of late. Beckett and Lester’s BABIP are both at .394. Pitchers normalize around .300, so they’re both due for serious regression at some point.

In addition, during the Lester/Garza match up with Tampa Bay the other day, Lester induced three ground balls that Julio Lugo couldn’t get to, channeling Forrest Gump with his wooden movements. It’s rather obvious that Lugo isn’t fully healed from his hamstring problems (although he is hitting rather nicely).

If I were the Sox, I would continue platooning him with Nick Green and holding him out of starts where groundballs are expected to be heavy (such as when Justin Masterson starts).

It’s a testament to how good the offense and bullpen is that the Sox are hanging around first place. Once the starters start regressing to the norm, the club will be that much more stronger.

One thought I’ve had: Why not demote Hunter Jones, put Justin Masterson back in the bullpen and call up Clay Buchholz? Dude’s got a 1.33 ERA in five starts!