Rick Porcello
Rick Porcello had his best major league season in 2014.
This year, he’s the worst pitcher in the American League.
Over the weekend, the Red Sox finally cried uncle, shelving Porcello for a few weeks with “tricep soreness.” In other words, he can’t get anybody out and the Boston front office can't stand to watch much more of it.
Porcello’s last start, a home outing against the White Sox, was one of the worst of his seven-year career. Ricky P faced 18 Chicago hitters and retired six of them. A whopping ten hits were surrendered in the game’s first 2+ innings, by which time Red Sox skipper John Farrell decided to finally pull the plug.
How did things go so badly so quickly for the 26-year-old righty? Hard to say.
Don't Blame Fenway
Of course, Fenway Park is not Comerica in terms of pitcher-friendliness, but even so, Porcello’s performances on the road have been just as atrocious, if not worse. He’s made ten starts each home and away. At Fenway, he managed to win four of those games. On the road, he’s secured just one W while sporting a ghastly 6.83 ERA.
And if Boston thinks they are getting out from under this rock with a mere 15-day trip to the disabled list, they’re in for a rude awakening. Porcello is on the hook for 20 million next year, the year after that, the year after that, and one more year as the cherry on top.
Four grueling years remain to pay Porcello like he’s Jim Palmer. Only in this case it would be some type of bizarro world Jim Palmer who serves up homers like free refills and watches his ERA soar like a 747.
In 2014, Porcello was one of the top hurlers for the AL Central-champion Tigers. He won 15 games for the first time in his career, carved a full run (3.43) from his usual ERA in the mid-fours, and was the only pitcher in the Junior Circuit to record three shutouts.
After an off-season trade sent him to Boston, the sky appeared to be the limit for the blossoming pitcher with one of the most feared sinkers in the league.
Then the actual 2015 season began and the script flipped completely. In Porcello’s third outing of the year, he coughed up eight runs to Baltimore. A month later, it was 13 runs over two starts to the Angels and Twins. The pattern has continued all summer.
Porcello gets shelled, comes back and makes a couple of respectable starts, then gets clobbered again. He’s like a mountain climber trying to reach the summit, only to get knocked back down a few pegs every time any progress begins to be made.
Only once in 20 starts this season has Porcello recorded an out past the 7th inning, a stunning reversal for a guy that came to be known as a game finisher last year.
With 56 games left on the BoSox schedule, it’s hard to imagine them rushing to get Porcello back on the bump. They’ll likely take this time to give the kid a breather and possibly show him some game film, trying to determine what it is that’s turned this faerie tale into a horror show.
Excellent Trade for Detroit
The Tigers' starting rotation has been in shambles for much of the year. You can rag on Dave Dombrowski for the Shane Greene and Alfredo Simon additions, but you most definitely cannot second-guess his decision to ship Porcello off to Boston. In that deal, the Tigers received Yoenis Cespedes, who had a very good four months for the club before getting dealt to the Mets as part of White Flag Weekend.
The career for Rick Porcello is obviously not over. He hasn’t experienced some inexplicable loss of control like Steve Blass or Rick Ankiel. He’s still throwing strikes for the most part; it’s just that when he does, they are flying off the bat twice as fast as when they came in.
Porcello will likely make a return sometime later in the month in the hopes of shrinking that impossibly high 5.81 earned run average, maybe even climb out of dead last in that category (for all qualified pitchers).
On the open market, you can sell a player high or sell a player low. In this case, Dombrowski and the Tigers maxed out on Porcello’s value, getting out at precisely the right time.
They had no way of knowing that he was soon going to become the American League’s favorite pitching piñata.
But you can be sure they’re grateful that the party is taking place anywhere but here.
