Could Health Improve Pitching Staff?

One of the biggest stories of the 2007 baseball season is the Red Sox pitching staff. The dominance of Red Sox pitchers has carried the team to what is currently the best record in the majors. It’s scary to think that going into Saturday’s game against the Yankees, the Red Sox pitching staff had an ERA of 3.29 and a WHIP of 1.21. What makes that number even scarier is that the Red Sox have done it without their best health. 23-year-old pitching phenom, Jon Lester, has yet to throw a pitch in the majors this year. In his place, the Red Sox have been forced to use Julian Tavarez. Sure, Tavarez is only one pitcher in a staff of 12. Usually, one pitcher wouldn’t have all that much of an affect on a pitching staff. Unfortunately, the one pitcher we’re talking about is Julian Tavarez. Since coming to the Red Sox last year, Tavarez has put up an ERA of 4.95 and WHIP of 1.59 over 112.2 innings of work. That’s bad enough to hurt any pitching staff.
Still don’t believe me? Maybe this will help. All together, the Red Sox pitching staff has an ERA of 3.70 and a WHIP of 1.14 over 143.1 innings of work. 14 of those innings were provided by Julian Tavarez, over which he’s had an ERA of 8.36 and a WHIP of 1.79. If you subtract that embarrassing display of pitching the Red Sox rotation’s ERA goes down from 3.70 to 3.21 and their WHIP goes down from 1.14 to 1.08. Fortunately for the Red Sox, Tavarez will soon be taken out of the rotation. Jon Lester, who made a successful rehab start this Friday, is on the fast road to recovery. Here’s how he’s progressed so far in 4 minor league starts.
A Level – 13 IP, 11 H, 3 ER (2.08 ERA), 2 BB, 15 SO

AAA Level – 5 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 6 SO
Lester has been declared completely healthy by the Red Sox doctors. It is now just an issue of building up arm strength to the point that he could throw 100 pitches in a major league game. The Red Sox want to avoid bringing up a pitcher who they’d have to keep on a strict, limited pitch count. In the words of Terry Francona, “we want to get him to a pitch count where he can go and completely compete, take the shackles off and pitch as good as you can pitch.”