BOSTON — The Red Sox trailed the Los Angeles Dodgers 2-0 after five innings Sunday, hardly an imposing deficit.
Before long, however, the Dodgers’ lead grew. They scored twice in the sixth, once more in the seventh and twice again in the eighth, putting the game out of reach.
And still, Chris Murphy remained on the mound. It didn’t seem to matter that he allowed runs in each of the four innings he pitched. Nor did it matter that Murphy faced a minimum of five hitters in each frame.
Once the Red Sox fell behind, they were already looking ahead. Alex Cora has often peached against the dangers of “chasing wins” — that it, selling out with your personnel to win that day’s game, often at the expense of the next few games.
Sunday, Cora stuck to his guns. Down by four, five and then seven runs, he wouldn’t budge. As the Dodgers belted Murphy around for nine hits — including four extra-base hits – he might have otherwise gone to another relief option to keep the game within reach.
Instead, Murphy was left on the mound, throwing a total of 90 pitches. The Red Sox would live to fight another day, and metaphorically waved the white flag.
Sample HTML block
“We needed to do that,” said Cora of his strategy of sticking with Murphy as the runs piled up. “Tanner (Houck, the starting pitcher) was at 80 (pitches). With him and Chris (Sale), we’ve got to be smart about it. We tried, but (the Dodgers) were really good today.”
This is the downside, of course, of having a complete rotation again. For weeks, the Red Sox talked up the prospect of having five genuine starters again, of not having to designate one or two games every turn through the rotation as bullpen games.
$200 INSTANT BONUS
DRAFTKINGS MASS
BET $5, GET $200 BONUS BET
FANDUEL MASS
BET $50, GET $250 BONUS
CAESARS MASS
$1,000 FIRST-BET BONUS
BETMGM MASS
MA only. 21+. Gambling Problem? If you or a loved one is experiencing problems with gambling, please call 1-800-327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org for 24/7 support. LiveChat with a GameSense Advisor at GameSenseMA.com or call 1-800-GAM-1234
MA Gambling Helpline.
But Houck and Sale didn’t return to action at full strength. They both were sidelined for more than two months, so it’s not surprising that they need additional time to build up. Sale and Houck made just two rehab starts each and their workloads have to be carefully managed. And fewer innings from your starters mean, by fault, more innings asked of your relievers.
On Sunday, that caught up to the Red Sox. Cora had joked pre-game that the bullpen card for the day was like a rainbow, with various colors signifying pitchers’ availability: green signifies a full-go, yellow means to be cautious, red means the pitcher is down, and so on.
At a time when every game matters and the Red Sox needing to make up ground, Cora would have loved to have had a full complement of relievers to compete every game. But that wasn’t the reality.
“It’s tough,” he acknowledged, “but we have to do it. First thing’s first is the player’s health. This is where we’re at.”
It’s not hard to figure out why the bullpen wasn’t at his full disposal. On Saturday, the Sox got just 4.1 innings from James Paxton. On Friday, Kutter Crawford hit a wall after just five innings, nearing 90 pitches.
In all, over their last seven games, the Red Sox have had just one game in which they’ve gotten more than five innings from a starting pitcher: that came Thursday, when Brayan Bello provided seven innings in a 17-1 pasting of the Astros.
Over time, there’s a price to be paid for a lack of innings from starters, and on Sunday, the bill came due for the Red Sox.
“That’s part of 162,” said Cora philosophically. “At times, guys are going to go six and seven (innings) and then they’e going to grind through it. We just have to find a way. We’ve got to get better at it. We’re facing some good hitters, lineups jut like ours that are going to keep grinding, keep grinding with you. The pitch counts are going to get up and you’re going to go through stretches like this.”
Having pushed Murphy for four innings and 90 pitches, he won’t be available for a few days. Cora was late to his post-game press conference as he discussed possible bullpen reinforcements for the upcoming Houston series.
Armed with one more fresh arm and the prospect of an off-day Thursday, the Red Sox should have the opportunity to re-set their staff for this week.
