Article: Early Worries About How Alex Cora Is Handling the Red Sox Bullpen

[Davy Andrews]

The times through the order penalty killed the Red Sox in the first series of the season.

I’m writing this on Monday morning. I am almost literally Monday-morning quarterbacking here. But it’s not too early to talk about Alex Cora’s use of the bullpen – or rather, his reluctance to use the bullpen. After being picked to win the AL East by many prognosticators, the Red Sox are off to 1-3 start, good for last place in the division. The biggest problem is the bats, which have yet to awaken, but there’s another, very obvious problem lurking. Alex Cora is leaving his starters in to face the opposing lineup for a third time.

The Red Sox are one of just seven teams in baseball to let their starter face their opponent’s lineup for a third time in all four games they’ve played this season. Their starters had 18 plate appearances when they were facing a player for the third time, and those opponents have batted .444 with an OPS+ of 266. If you're keeping score at home, that's bad. Boston’s four runs allowed in that situation are tied for third-most in baseball. By contrast, the Rangers let their starters face Red Sox hitters a third time in just seven PAs.

In case you’re not familiar with the times-through-the-order penalty, let me break it down for you very quickly: pitchers fare way worse when they’re facing the lineup for the third time. At Baseball Prospectus, Rob Mains pulled the 2024 numbers in October: “starting pitchers allowed a .696 OPS to the first nine batters they faced, .727 to the second nine, .761 to the third nine. Their performance deteriorated each time through. Relative to their overall performance, starters’ OPS allowed was 4% better the first time, 4% worse the second time, and 13% worse the third time.” There are multiple reasons for this: pitchers are tired, batters are familiar with their pitches after having seen them twice, and the numbers are skewed toward the best batters in the lineup. Regardless, this is a real effect. It has been known for a long time, and it’s one of the reasons that starting pitchers throw fewer innings these days. Starting pitchers on other teams, anyway.

On Opening Day, Garrett Crochet came out to face the top of the lineup in the fifth inning, and although he allowed a single, a double play allowed him to have a three-up, three-down inning anyway. Regardless of how it turned out, I think that’s a pretty reasonable situation. Crochet is the team’s undisputed ace and one of the best pitchers in the game.

It’s much harder to defend Cora’s decision during the second game of the season, when he let Tanner Houck turn over the lineup in the fifth inning – after the eight and nine hitters homered and singled, respectively. Houck got out of the fifth without any more damage, but he returned in the sixth inning with the Sox down 2-1 and went single, single, fly-out, RBI double. Houck is not the team’s ace, and he was in trouble even before he turned the lineup over for a third time. When he came out to pitch the fifth inning, the Red Sox had a 48% win probability. When he faced leadoff batter Marcus Semien for the third time, that number was down to 28%. When Greg Weissert came in to relieve him six batters later, it was 16%.

On Saturday, Walker Buehler stayed in to face Marcus Semien in the fifth inning, once again with the Red Sox down by one run. He allowed two straight singles, pushing the lead to two runs, then recorded a strikeout and got pulled. The Red Sox would pull to within one run in the eighth inning, but lose.

On Sunday, Richard Fitts turned over the lineup with two outs in the bottom of the fifth and induced a groundout from Semien. It would’ve been a great time to pull him. He’d allowed just one run, and the Red Sox had a 2-1 lead. Instead, Fitts was allowed to stay in to face the heart of the lineup, and he allowed home runs to both Wyatt Langford and Adolis García, coughing up a lead they would never recover. If you’re keeping score at home, that means that four of the team’s 13 runs allowed, or 31%, came when the starting pitcher was facing the other team for the third time. That’s the second-highest percentage in baseball.

To me, this is less about the specifics of the situations – when it worked out, when it didn’t – and more about the overarching pattern. It’s worth noting that the Red Sox didn’t do this as much last year. Their 132 games in which the starter turned the lineup over a third time were tied for 21st, as were their 694 PAs. Moreover, the Red Sox were in this position largely because their starters have struggled early over these first four games. The Rangers got out to an early lead in every single game of the series, which meant that the Red Sox were facing the third time through the order earlier in the game than they would’ve liked. Taking the pitcher out every single time would’ve depleted the bullpen. A manager will always have to pick their spots.

Put all this together, and the pattern is not so much that Alex Cora is a dinosaur who's stuck in the past. He's old-school, but he's well-versed in the data. Rather, the pattern is that Cora may not trust the team’s bullpen as much this season. It’s hard to blame him; the bullpen does look a bit weaker this year. The team added Aroldis Chapman and Liam Hendriks in place of Kenley Jansen and Chris Martin, which seems like a pretty clear downgrade. However, this year’s bullpen looks to have more depth, partly because the team reinforced the starting rotation, pushing starters into the bullpen, and partly because some young players have taken a step forward. According to FanGraphs’ positional power rankings, this year’s bullpen is projected to be ninth-best in the league, after being projected for 20th-best last season. So far, the bullpen has 0.00 ERA and a fourth-ranked 1.96 FIP over 12 innings of work (though its 4.24 xFIP ranks 21st, which is not as pretty).

There’s no guarantee that the bullpen will continue to be perfect, or even to be good, for that matter. However, Cora will have to depend on them one way or another. In the meantime, the goal should be to hand the game over to them before the starter implodes.  

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[Bellhorn04]

It seems like a conundrum.  If you're consistently pulling the starter after a maximum of 18 hitters, you're consistently turning the game over to the pen for at least 4 innings, and that means starting off with with one of your lesser relievers.

And after yesterday's day off, the Sox now play 15 days in a row.

[Maxbialystock]

The article in the OP is hardly original.  I was commenting repeatedly on Cora's reluctance to use his bullpen and specifically said leaving his starters in games was the direct cause of losing games 3 and 4 in Texas.