Red Sox relief pitcher Chris Murphy began the season in the starting rotation for the Worcester Red Sox. Safe to say, it didn’t go well for him.
In nine starts and 12 total appearances, he recorded a 7.01 ERA, allowing 34 earned runs in 43.2 innings. The worst of which coming on April 13, when he started against the Colorado Spring Sky Sox. He was pulled after one inning, allowing seven hits and three walks, giving up eight runs.
He was promoted to the majors in early June as a reliever, and a lot of his minor league struggles vanished. The 25-year-old pitched 3.1 innings against the Cleveland Guardians in his first appearance, striking out five and allowing zero runs. He’s been one of Boston’s most reliable bullpen arms since. In his first major league season he has a 2.94 ERA through 33.2 innings.
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Red Sox pitcher Dave Bush joined the Fenway Rundown and explained Murphy’s drastic performance change.
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“(Murphy’s) confidence in his stuff is big,” Bush said. “He’s always had good stuff. There’s never a question of that. Strike throwing was the problem for him in the minor leagues. Just the ability to consistently stay in the strike zone and trust his stuff and force the hitters, force the action on the hitters. We instilled that in him in spring training, just making sure he understands that when he gets to the big leagues, that keeping the ball over the plate is a really critical part of what he can do.”
Murphy throws a strike 60.8 percent of the time in the majors, and his walks per nine innings decreased from 5.4 to 4.0 from Triple-A to the majors.
“He has a lot of strengths, Bush said. “His fastball rides. He’s got a good slower breaking ball. He has a good harder cutter. He can throw a change up when he wants to. It’s a lot of strengths that not all left-handers have. And so, as he’s been able to throw more balls over the plate and work ahead in the count, we’ve seen the stuff play.
“That’s the biggest piece is just constantly reminding him how good his stuff is, how well it plays in the strike zone, and then when he works ahead of guys, he can get anybody out. Lefties, righties, it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter what part of lineup is in, doesn’t matter who’s up, doesn’t matter who he’s facing.”
