By: Mark Pagliuca
Pedro Martinez is the best pitcher in baseball, we all know it, we also know one man does not make a championship team. In a perfect season, Pedro starts 36 games and wins them all. Highly unlikely. Who else in the rotation or possible rotation will help?Start with big brother. Ramon Martinez is a 12-year veteran of the big leagues, he is also coming off surgery which is probably the reason he was rusty during spring training and it carried over to the regular season. He knows how to pitch, he just needs to have confindence in his arm. The good news is it's working. He's started three games this season with a horrible first game. On the 11th vs. Minnesota, he started off ugly walking in the first run of the game. After calming down, he faced four batters in the second, three in third, and four in the fourth and fifth innings. Showing signs of the dominant pitcher in Dodger Blue, when he never finished a season with higher than a 4.00 era (1992 it was 4.00). His third start, I think, was just as good as his second, with the exception of a hard three run double by Chavez. He is on pace to sell as many Red Sox jerseys as his brother.
Jeff Fassero and Pete Schourek are very important to this team. A good rotation needs a quality southpaw, two of them is better. Hopefully the quality will shinie through. Fassero pitched very well in his last start, pitching just over 5 innings giving up one run and four strikeouts. One thing I find just as important is the 2 walks let up. This is definitely showing control. From the 6 walks in his first start to 2 in his last two starts. He has only gone about 5 innings in every game, but it is early in the season. Fassero may be better than we all think. Schourek has been working on his control though a much higher walks/batters-faced ratio. However with two starts under his belt so far his era is still below 4.00, I do believe they will have their tough games, but I think they will have more good than bad. I think Red Sox fans tend to highlight the negative, unless the positive is VERY positive. Help us all if Pedro ever goes 2/3 innings with 6 earned runs and 4 walks.
Brian Rose, South Dartmouth native, has started this year like his abbreviated second half last year. Rose went 4-0 through June and 2-6 the rest of his season, this made Jimy give way to Mark Portugal and Pat Rapp. I believe Brian Rose has what it takes to win 13, possibly 15 games per year. He needs to prove he can be consistent. People wonder what Joe Kerrigan will do with Fassero and Schourek, what I want to know is how long before Rose can be considered a solid number 3 starter? (No. 2 for other clubs). Bret Saberhagen and Jin-Ho Cho are currently on the DL. Saberhagen has an optimistic return date in mid to late May. If he has trouble adjusting to his shoulder surgery, then he will continue those rehab assignments in Sarasota. If not, Brian Rose may miss some starts when Bret comes back. Cho's thoracic nerve problem may keep him from threatening Rose's job in the near future, but Cho will come back, just like Bret.
I know the season is still young, but from seeing the staff in Pawtucket and even the rougher Trenton team, the Boston Red Sox finally have decent depth in the starting pitching department. They are also young and very inexperienced for the big leagues. However, Ohka (1.39 era, 2 starts), Kim (2.46 era, 2 starts), and Fernandez (3.75 era, 2 starts) in Pawtucket and Crawford (1.64 era, 2 starts) in Trenton, are looking good in mid April. Wrapping things up, with both Martinez winning 40 games combined, Fassero and Schourek winning 25 combined, we are left with a lot of hitting and some clutch performances by players coming off rehab and young arms trying to prove something. Keep in mind the American League pitching usually has an ERA over 4.00, these young pitchers only need to pitch 5-6 innings and give up 2-3 runs and our offense should lock it up.