Did Red Sox Manager Sabotage his own team?

By calling out the 25-year-old Michael Pineda and his obvious use of pine tar last Wednesday night, John Farrell, the Red Sox manager, won the battle against the Yankees. If Thursday’s game was any indication, though, he is losing his grip (no pun intended) on the war. The Red Sox started their own mid-20’s pitcher Felix Doubront, 26, in Thursday’s rubber game of the series and the young pitcher failed to make it out of the third inning. Doubront was largely ineffective in the contest and his team’s five errors didn’t help in the cause. Is it possible that by Farrell calling out Pineda the previous night he really only sabotaged his own ball club?

The only thing dumber than Pineda putting pine tar on his neck Wednesday night would have been Doubront or CC Sabathia, the Yankees Thursday starter, to have used pine tar during the game. Sabathia’s outing wasn’t spectacular but it was still very strong, he struck out eight Red Sox hitters in six innings and was certainly much better than Doubront. While this is complete speculation; is it possible that Doubront’s command was minimized by not using pine tar? Of course you can say Sabathia’s command should have been diminished also. While that’s true Sabathia has 14 years of experience, including a Cy Young award, to fall back on if he can’t use pine tar to help his grip. Doubront has five years of mediocre major league experience to fall back on when he is in trouble. Farrell knew who the following day starters would be when he asked the umpires to check on Pineda. He knew he had a young pitcher going up against a possible future Hall-of-Famer who doesn’t rattle easily. Why call attention to pine tar at that moment?

Doubront pitched 2-2/3 innings in his start. While only three of the seven runs he gave up were earned, he clearly didn’t have the control he needed. He walked two batters in the short appearance which by no means is terrible but he also surrendered two wild pitches when he’d only thrown one in his previous four starts combined. The Yankees also got six hits against Doubront in the outing suggesting the pitcher couldn’t hit his spots. One of those hits was a homerun by Mark Teixeira over the Green Monster in left field on a hanging breaking ball. On top of that homerun, of the eight outs he recorded only one came via strikeout.

It all boils down to one thing, Doubront couldn’t command his pitches. The question remains, though, why couldn’t Doubront control his pitches? Every pitcher has a bad game occasionally, there’s no getting around that. But Doubront was coming off a very strong outing against a powerful Baltimore Orioles lineup in which he only gave up two runs in 6-2/3 innings while issuing only two walks. Oftentimes when a pitcher has one strong start they’re able to push it into a second good start and get on a groove. Doubront wasn’t able to do that, though. Granted his defense failed him by making five errors, including one of his own. Five errors or not, though, Doubront still pitched poorly.

After Pineda’s ejection on Wednesday pitchers across the league, both retired and active, said that “everyone” uses some sort of agent to help get a grip on the ball to help their control. On Thursday night the Red Sox starter couldn’t get into the fourth inning. That could; of course, be a coincidence but the pitcher’s lack of command makes a coincidence seem unlikely.

On Wednesday, Farrell opened up a can of worms by having Pineda ejected. It may have helped his team win the game but the season is long and it’s quite possible the ejection will lead to sabotage instead of success.