Pitch In or Pitch Out

They lose a couple of games and two guys jump off the Tobin Bridge. Come on, it’s not that bad….YET.

But the way the pitching is going, there could be a line up there soon.

Which brings us to John Farrell, the pitching coach. He’s a very well-respected guy in the game, and has been mentioned as a managerial prospect in places like Pittsburgh. He wisely took himself out of the running for that thankless job and stayed with the Red Sox. But maybe this offseason he will finally get that manager’s job. We can only hope.

Farrell came to the Sox from the Indians’ front office. He had never been a pitching coach at the major league level. Nor at the minor league level for that matter. Here’s his bio from redsox.com:

After his retirement as an active player, spent 5 seasons from 1997-2001 as Assistant Coach/Pitching & Recruiting Coordinator at Oklahoma State University, completing his bachelors degree at OSU in 1996...With the Cowboys, instilled new disciplines and methods into the program and mentored 14 pitchers that were drafted or signed as non-drafted free agents at the professional level, including 1999 National League Rookie of the Year Scott Williamson. Prior to 2007, Farrell served as the Cleveland Indians Director of Player Development since November 2001.

All very nice. And in two previous seasons on the Boston bench the pitching has been pretty good – ERA around 4, which is one of the best in baseball. But we’ve found out that Farrell has a major flaw: He can’t see and correct pitching problems.

Case #1: John Smoltz
After posting a 2-5 record here with an 8.33 ERA, Smoltz moved on to St. Louis, where he has become the Atlanta version of John Smoltz again, striking out 21 in 17 innings. It seems that Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter noticed that Smoltz was tipping his pitches. A minor correction has made the difference and now Smoltz is helping the Cards toward the NL Central title while Boston has Paul Byrd in place of Smoltz.

Case #2: Brad Penny
Ten horrible starts in a row led to his demise in Boston. Then he goes to the Giants and pitches eight shutout innings. The difference? Well, remember in his last start here against the Yankees, RemDawg pointed out that Penny was just firing fastballs up there and the Yankees were geared up for them? The Giants got him to throw more breaking balls and it worked.

Case #3: Daisuke Matsuzaka
True, the World Baseball Classic screwed him up big time, but there were mechanical issues there too, and his continual nibbling around the plate and inability or refusal to go after hitters. Maybe Dice-K’s stubbornness and refusal to do things any other way than his own contributes, but there has never been a connection between the team pitching philosophy, as implemented by Farrell, and the pitcher. Seems like more could be done here to get everybody on the same page.

Case #4: Ramon Ramirez and Manny Delcarmen
Since August, Ramirez has melted down in about two of every three relief appearances. And when Ramirez doesn’t meld down, Delcarmen does. Why can’t there be some consistency there? And as for Delcarmen, he has never developed into the setup guy he was always expected to be. With his stuff, his record should be better.

Case #5: Josh Beckett
You want to talk about inconsistent, here’s another case where the player is having problems and the pitching coach can’t do anything about it. The Sox “ace” is in free fall at the most important time of the regular season. If this is a physical problem, well, there isn’t much a pitching coach can do about that. But if it is a mechanical problem that is leading to home runs flying out at an alarming rate, then the pitching coach should be able to do something about it. But, given his track record, Farrell probably can’t.

In short, John Farrell is a good pitching coach when things are going well. But every pitching coach is a good pitching coach when things are going well. The outstanding pitching coaches earn their keep by fixing things that go wrong. And Farrell has shown no ability to be that fixer, or to bring a young pitcher to the next level. Maybe it’s time for him to accept one of those managerial jobs over the winter. Case closed.