I thought I was pretty clear on my points after having to explain it several times from various angles.
Sale is clearly not himself. To say he is near his "career norm" or as I prefer to look at his last 2-3 year "norm" is just plain wrong. He is struggling, inconsistent and is no where near what he was like before the injury last summer. Throw out March and April, and he is no where near a Cy Young contender.
Price is doing better- no argument here.
ERod going deeper into games has been a bright spot, but he's pitching significantly worse than last year. He's entering prime, so one should not compare his numbers now, in prime, to his career numbers as those numbers include early career struggles. Nobody expected him to pitch like he did early in his career.
ERod's numbers after his 5th start:
4.40 ERA
1.37 WHIP
5.9 IP/GS
The 4.40 ERA is higher than every season in his career, except 2016's 4.71. His career ERA is 4.23, which is close, but pretty far from his 2017-2018 combined 4.01 ERA. His WHIP from 2017-2018 was 1.27. 5.9 IP per GS does outweighs the 5.5 IP/GS over the last 2 years but not by enough to make him near "norm".
Porcello is not even up for debate.
Add to this the fact that all but Price are trending downwards over their last 3, 5 or 9 starts (any number you chose) only highlights the fact that 3 of our starters are not near any norm.