By clinching the division so early, afforded the Red Sox some luxuries most teams can’t afford. Players can receive some well deserved time off to rest up for October, auditions can be held for postseason roster spots, and some players can be shuffled around to see if they take well to another role.

Alex Cora took advantage of this and rested several key players like Andrew Benintendi. Brandon Workman was given the chance to pitch his way onto the postseason roster and did so. Steven Wright was thrown in the bullpen and has thrived. Towards the end of the season, however, Eduardo Rodriguez came out of the bullpen and seems sentenced to relief duty this postseason. The fourth spot in the rotation might not even be featured in the division series, but I believe this is a huge mistake.

With Wright’s role cemented in the bullpen, Rodriguez’s rotation spot goes to Nathan Eovaldi. Aside from his two-start stretch when the Sox first acquired him, he hasn’t done anything to show that he’s a better pitcher than Rodriguez. Both are inconsistent with similar arsenals but unlike Eovaldi, Rodriguez has projection. Rodriguez showed the ability to pitch dominantly across longer stretches of time as recently as July before he suffered the right ankle sprain that knocked him out until September 1st. Eovaldi has flashed the ability to tear through a lineup three times through but has an entire career that says his dominant performances are outliers.

My guess is that Alex Cora views Eovaldi as the safer choice of the two. The problem with that is that Eovaldi has just as much, if not more, downside risk than Rodriguez. For example, Eovaldi’s lack of walks shows up in other ways, namely his propensity to give up hard contact. A perfect example of this was his August 10th start against Baltimore, where he allowed 10 hits and 8 runs in 2.2 innings. Rodriguez is the more visibly high variance pitcher whose performance can vary from inning to inning. He is more likely to fall into trouble with his command, but that gives Cora a chance to minimize damage if Eddy doesn’t have it that night while possessing the upside to throw six or seven quality innings, something Eovaldi doesn’t have a knack for doing.

The high variance option may blow up in his face or throw seven shutout innings. In the postseason where a quick hook will be used, the downside risk is mitigated and the upside is aggravated. If Rodriguez blows up in the first inning, Joe Kelly or Brandon Workman could come in to finish the inning and give way to Wright or Eovaldi to eat innings.

E-Rod’s cumulative numbers since returning haven’t been pretty. Four starts, 18.2 innings, and a 5.79 ERA. But in two of those starts, he wrecked opposing offenses, 5.2 innings and 12 strikeouts in his return against the White Sox. Two starts later against Toronto, he threw 78 pitches through six innings of one-run ball and struck out seven without allowing a walk.

Beyond the upside of starting Rodriguez, there’s significant upside to Eovaldi coming out of the bullpen and throwing 100 MPH fastballs complemented with 97 MPH cutters, an arsenal that should play up in short bursts better than Rodriguez’s.

What I take away from this decision is that Eovaldi has pitched very well against the Yankees three times since coming to Boston and Eduardo’s last start against New York was a clunker. From a supposedly sabermetric minded manager, I would expect better logic and reasoning than mincing apart a small handful of innings when the larger profile suggests you should choose the high variance arm as opposed to the suggested “safe play”. There’s nothing safe about Eovaldi. Starting Rodriguez and putting Eovaldi in the bullpen is a win-win situation that makes the team better in October.

Just one game into the new season, Alex Cora is in hot water.

The Red Sox lost a heartbreaker, losing a very winnable game on the back of Chris Sale, 6-4. Joe Kelly entered the 8th with a 4-0 lead, walked three and gave up a double before giving way to Carson Smith, who walked one and allowed the go-ahead triple to Denard Span.

Cora is under criticism for not deploying Kimbrel in the same manner in which he was used early last season – using Kimbrel as a fireman to record a four-or-five out save – but it’s not that simple. Farrell eventually tapped the brakes the idea and shifted Kimbrel to a more traditional role, hoping to save Kimbrel’s bullets for the postseason. While Kimbrel would have been and, for a time, was an amazingly useful fireman, he couldn’t keep recording four and five out saves for a full season. The project was benched, and things went back to normal.

It was a good idea on paper, but the problem with the experiment was that Kimbrel had too much heaped on his plate for a modern closer.

Managers are only willing to stray so far from normal practice when it comes to their closers. If Kimbrel enters a 4-3 game with two outs in the 8th, who’s going to save the game? It’s gotta be your closer because that’s your closer’s job. No one else could possibly save the game! Put your closer in for too many four-out saves, and he’ll be gassed in the long-term. Then again, using an inferior pitcher in a pivotal moment risks losing the game.

There are two ways to solve this:

1) Acquire a bunch of really good relievers so games are impossible to mismanage (example: the New York Yankees).

2) Change the structure in which Major League bullpens operate. It’d both make for a more entertaining game and make you more likely to win ball games! Alas, it’s hard to see this being implemented anytime soon. Every time a closer-by-committee approach is floated, someone immediately takes the job and runs away with it. Any modernization of the bullpen appears to be headed towards piggy-backing starters relegated to the bullpen due to durability deficiencies or an inability to face a lineup more than twice through the order.

With that being said, the move Cora made is a move every manager (with the possible exception of Gabe Kapler) makes. It is virtually impossible at this point to expect a manager to do otherwise. We can only have this debate so many times before realizing that nothing is going to change and we have to work around it. The only lesson this game should reinforce is that the Sox lost on a chance to go in hard on the reliever market, opting to bet on the false hope of last year’s success. Any replacement you bring in for Cora would’ve made the same move, so have fun making a fool of yourself by his head on a spike after one game.

So the Sox blew a 6-4 game against the Royals because Matt Barnes and Robbie Scott combined to throw 11 straight balls to load the bases. Eventually, Scott left a high fastball over the middle of the plate that Salvador Perez deposited over the left field fence for a go-ahead grand slam.

There are several layers to unpack here. John Farrell’s managing in of itself did not lose this game, but Robbie Scott should not have been put in a position to face Salvador Perez with the bases loaded. Scott is a LOOGY through and through. If you wanted a lefty to face Hosmer and Perez, Abad is your choice.

A second option here would be warming up Hembree in conjunction with Scott so he could come in and face Perez after Scott faced Hosmer. Then, the LOOGY would perform his designated duty and would be out so he would not be placed in a situation to fail.

The third option that is being talked by most is putting in Craig Kimbrel. After being used as a modern fireman throughout the year, Kimbrel hasn’t pitched before the 9th since June 6th despite there being several times where he could’ve been used. After that game, where Kimbrel struck out five batters in 1.1 innings, Farrell stated that “there’s a relunctance to continue to [throw Kimbrel for more than an inning].” That night, Kimbrel said that he “would prefer to throw one inning two or three nights in a row,” but backed up his manager’s aggressiveness with his usage by saying “I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do to help this team win.”

I’m sure, if asked, that Farrell would inform us that there were 0 outs in the 8th inning and that he did not want to throw Kimbrel for two innings. If that’s the case, it is a good thing that there isn’t a rule stating that you have to allow your closer to finish the game once he’s been thrown into a save situation. Kimbrel was needed more in the 8th against Perez than he would have been at the beginning of a 9th inning. I am aware that no manager would do this unless it was the postseason (and even then, they would let their closer finish the game), but it is infuriating when the only lethal weapon in the pen is available in a set of carefully defined situations, especially when he was WILDLY successful in such a role earlier in the year.

Aside from Kimbrel, Scott, and whoever the last man in the pen happens to be at any given time, the talent in this bullpen is clustered closely together. Over 60 innings, Barnes, Hembree, Kelly, and Abad are likely to put up similar ERA’s hovering from league average to slightly below. You could argue that Kelly (and even Barnes) have upside, but on the aggregate, these are comparable pitchers. To get the most out of these men, you have to play match-ups with them and pray the wind is blowing the right way that day. Given your lack of impact options with Carson Smith on rehab and Tyler Thornburg on the shelf, you have to unleash your best weapon when he is most needed and worry about piecing the end of the puzzle together at another time.

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of delusion on #RedSoxTwitter regarding the competitive state of today’s team. Well, I’m afraid I’ve got some BAD NEWS. This team, as currently constructed, is not fit to make a run at a wild card. In fact, not many teams would be prepared to claw themselves out from this big a hole.

According to Baseball Prospectus’ playoff odds page,  the final standings should look something like this.

Yankees: 87-75
Blue Jays: 84-78
Red Sox: 81-81
Rays: 80-82
Orioles: 78-84

There are 72 games remaining in the season. To win 88 games, the Sox would need to win 46 games. 46 wins with 72 games remaining is a .639 winning percentage.

That’s outperforming an already optimistic projection by 7 games.

Now Clay Buchholz is out indefinitely, meaning the rotation lacks any consistently good arms. E-Rod is on an undetermined innings limit and currently sits at 101 innings. Porcello should be better (and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was fine the rest of the season,) but he isn’t talented enough to carry a rotation even at his best.

The offense is littered with over performers such as Brock Holt and Alejandro De Aza, but should be balanced off by better performances by Hanley Ramirez, Pablo Sandoval, and David Ortiz. All in all, I feel it’s a wash with some potential upside. Either way, it’s not enough to carry the terrible pitching staff.

Competing this year was a fun idea, but it’s time to let it go and get ready for 2016 and beyond. This team sucks.

It’s the year 2014. We know that a good closer isn’t integral to a team’s success. That being said, having the closest to a sure thing in the back of the bullpen is an incredibly useful asset (an asset that contributed 3.6 WAR according to Baseball-Reference in 2013.)

Koji Uehara’s two year deal ends after 2014. When the 2015 season opens, he’ll be closing in on his 40th birthday. There have only been four pitchers since the DH era to save over 20 games at age 40 or older; Dennis Eckersley, Doug Jones, Trevor Hoffman, and Mariano Rivera. A one year deal for Uehara could possibly work out, but is the risk necessary? With the recent injury to Uehara, I wanted to take a look at the Sox’s internal options.

Edward Mujica
The former Cardinals closer was brought in to be the latter part of the bridge to Uehara with Junichi Tazawa in a deal that was widely appraised, and with good reason. Mujica’s K/BB ratio was the second best in baseball, only behind Uehara. He doesn’t strikeout a lot of guys, but his groundball tendencies make up for it. Mujica should remain an effective pitcher, although the 2 MPH decline on his fastball is troublesome.

Junichi Tazawa
It’s only when you look at Tazawa’s stats that you realize how comparable he is with Uehara. Tazawa isn’t on Uehara’s level by any means, but since 2011 he is third among relievers in K/BB ratio, 4th in BB%, within 3.3% of Uehara’s GB%. While Uehara relies on spotting his high 80’s fastball on the corners, Tazawa will consistently pump mid 90’s fastballs in the zone in an attempt to blow hitters away. With two strikes, Uehara will often go to his splitter while Tazawa prefers to stick with his fastball, but if he feels comfortable ahead in the count, he becomes more likely to attack with his splitter. Tazawa would be my personal choice to take over as closer in 2015. He’s a click away from becoming a top notch relief option, in my opinion.

Rubby De La Rosa
The long-time prospect has been brought up as a starter since he signed with the Dodgers in 2007, but he has always projected toward a bullpen role. De La Rosa kept his trademark velocity after undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2011, making his future role in the bullpen a near certainty.

Allen Webster
It pains me to say this, but Allen Webster might not work out as a starter. While this has been a popular opinion in the scouting world since he was traded to the Red Sox, I irrationally refuse to accept that his future is in the bullpen. However, with a plus plus fastball and the potential for a swing and miss secondary pitch, he could dominate in the bullpen.

Taking Ben Cherington’s previous history of acquiring closers into account, none of the aforementioned pitchers could take over the closer role in 2015. I hope Cherington has learned from his recent mistakes and turns to an in house option for the closer role.

The Red Sox announced their final roster today, with the only unexpected member on the roster being Brandon Workman, who was originally slated to be in the AAA rotation. Due to an injury to Craig Breslow that will start him on the 15 Day DL, Workman will be throwing out of the bullpen.

Catchers
A.J. Pierzynski
David Ross

Infielders
Will Middlebrooks
Xander Bogaerts
Dustin Pedroia
Mike Napoli
Jonathan Herrera

Outfielders
Daniel Nava
Grady Sizemore
Shane Victorino
Jonny Gomes
Mike Carp
Designated Hitter
David Ortiz

Rotation
Jon Lester
Clay Buchholz
John Lackey
Jake Peavy
Felix Doubront

Bullpen
Brandon Workman
Chris Capuano
Burke Badenbop
Andrew Miller
Junichi Tazawa
Edward Mujica
Koji Uehara

Drake Britton, Rubby De La Rosa, Allen Webster, and Jackie Bradley Jr. were all optioned to AAA Pawtucket. With the possibility of Shane Victorino hitting the DL, more changes could be coming. If Victorino is shelved for the first two weeks of the season, expect Bradley Jr. to be called up.

The Red Sox offense continues to roll, as they’ve now scored 19 runs in the first two games of this division series.

The Sox instantly put the pressure on David Price, scoring 2 runs in the first inning. Jacoby Ellsbury blooped a single into right field. Ellsbury would follow-up with a stolen base. The release by Jose Molina was quick, but the throw sailed into the outfield allowing Ellsbury to advance to third. Two batters later, Dustin Pedroia would drive home Ellsbury with a sacrifice fly to center, putting the Sox up 1-0. The next batter would be David Ortiz, who would take a hanging cutter into the bullpen to extend the lead to 2-0.

The Red Sox continued to push the throttle throughout the early part game. David Ross led off the third inning with a high fly ball off the green monster, followed by a 100 foot double by Jacoby Ellsbury on a bloop that sailed just over the head of Evan Longoria, who was playing in. David Ross would hustle around to score on the play, making it 3-0. After Shane Victorino singled on a ground ball through 5.5 hole on the left side of the infield, Dustin Pedroia would drive home Ellsbury on a ground out. Pedroia was credited with the RBI only because Victorino took out Zobrist at second base. The score was now 4-0 in favor of Boston.

Mike Napoli would lead off the 4th inning with a walk after Price was unable to locate his fastball outside. The Rays’ trend of shoddy defense would continue as Ben Zobrist airmailed a throw on what should have been a routine double play hit by Jonny Gomes. Stephen Drew would make the Rays pay for the error with an RBI triple, coincidentally misplayed by David DeJesus.

Through the 4 innings, everything was going perfectly. The offense had scored 5 runs against the Rays’ ace and John Lackey was on a roll, having struck out 5. A James Loney 2 run double would dampen the mood, but only temporarily, as Dustin Pedroia would drive home Jacoby Ellsbury with an RBI double to get back a run. The score was now 6-3, and David Price was seemingly on the ropes. John Lackey would begin the 6th, but would be pulled in favor of Craig Breslow after allowing Yunel Escobar to drive home Desmond Jennings, making the score 6-4. Breslow would retire pinch hitters Matt Joyce and Sean Rodriguez.

Meanwhile, David Price surprisingly came out for the 6th inning. The 6th inning was the worst offensive inning of the night for Boston, as they were retired 1-2-3, seeing only 8 pitches, 5 of which came during Ross’ at bat with 2 outs.

Breslow stayed in for the bottom of the 7th. After getting Wil Myers to ground out, Breslow would fall into trouble. Breslow hit James Loney with a fastball and walked Evan Longoria on 7 pitches. With the tying run on base, Farrell stayed with Breslow to face Ben Zobrist, who had struck out twice looking on inside fastballs by John Lackey. Farrell’s trust in Breslow would be rewarded, as Pedroia helped turn a great 6-4-3 double play to get out of the jam.

Price came out for the 7th inning and continued to mow down Boston hitters. After 5 innings of struggling, Price seemed to have finally found out groove. Price struck out Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia in his 1-2-3 inning.

Red Sox fans were expecting Koji Uehara to come on for the 6 out save, but instead we were greeted with Junichi Tazawa. After Delmon Young singled off of Tazawa’s 2nd consecutive curveball, fans were beginning to clamor for Koji. But, Tazawa was able to induce a double play ball to get out of the jam.

David Price surprisingly came out for the 8th inning to face David Ortiz. Price’s velocity was down in the 92-93 MPH range by this point. Ortiz would make Joe Maddon regret this decision, as he launched a bomb deep into the left field seats. The barely fair home run traveled 387 home feet (per @ESPNStatsInfo). Koji Uehara came on for the bottom of the 9th and was a swing and a miss away from completing an immaculate inning. Uehara struck out Matt Joyce and Jose Lobaton on three pitches and got Wil Myers to ground out, locking up the win.

NOTES

• Price wasn’t as bad as his line suggests. Jacoby Ellsbury’s first 2 hits were a product of BABIP luck. Stephen Drew’s triple should’ve been held to a double but was badly misplayed by David DeJesus. This wasn’t vintage David Price by any means, but he didn’t deserve the 7 earned runs he was charged with.

• David Ortiz had the first two home run postseason game of his career. Just another great postseason milestone for a great player with a great postseason legacy.

• John Lackey ran into a bump while he was making his way through the Rays’ lineup for the third time. This was not something Lackey was used to throughout the season, as hitters only hit .237/.288/.377 off him the third time through the lineup. This is a strange split, considering that teams hit .286/.327/.490 off him the second time through. This could be something to watch in later starts.

The Red Sox will look for the sweep on Monday at Tampa where they’ll throw out Clay Buchholz against Alex Cobb. Buchholz only has 1 postseason start on his resume, game 3 of the 2009 ALDS where he faced off against Scott . Buchholz worked 5 innings against the Angels, striking out 3, walking 1, and allowing 2 runs. Bard was relieved by Daniel Bard and Billy Wagner.