Hall of Fame Baseball Manager Will McKechnie was quoted in the Lima, Ohio, News on January 31, 1940 as saying “No sir, you can never have enough pitching.  Just when you think you have it, it is usually the time when you suddenly find yourself with pitchers who can never start  a game.”  In 1952, Charlie Dressen, Manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers said, as quoted in the Lubbock, Texas, Morning Avalanche, “You can never have enough pitching.”

Going into Spring Training this year, the Red Sox must have thought that those sentiments did not apply to them, having added Chris Sale, who had come in in the top six of the Cy Young voting every year for the past five years to a staff that already had last year’s Cy Young winner, Rick Porcello, and the 2012 Cy Young winner David Price. In addition, the starting rotation had Stephen Wright, an American League All Star from 2016 and Drew Pomeranz, a National League All Star from last year and Eduardo Rodriguez, who was 3-7 last year after being 10-6 his rookie year. 

They also had youngsters Henry Owens and Brian Johnson, who, although they had had less than sensational years last year, were still considered excellent prospects as starters.  They had also picked up 32 year old Kyle Kendrick, who spent the year at Salt Lake City in the AAA Pacific Coast League last year but had a career record of 81-81 and a 4.63 ERA for his career in the Big Leagues.  Porcello, Sale and Price were as good a front of the rotation as any in baseball and the others, particularly Wright, Rodriguez and Pomeranz were expected to fight for the fourth and fifth starters slot. 

Since the start of Spring Training, they have lost Price, who will probably miss at least the month of April and possibly some of May with elbow weakness, and Pomeranz left a game last week with tightness in his triceps, only his second outing of the spring and he had given up four runs in four innings of work.  Wright got a late start and had looked good but had only worked five innings with ten days to go in spring training.

Sale has looked like the Ace that he was at Chicago with good velocity and a slider that is one of the best in the business.  Porcello, in his first ten innings of work, had given up nine runs but looked comfortable.  He gave up four runs in the first inning of a start last week but settled down and worked his way through four more innings in typical Porcello style.  Rodriguez, in his first four outings, threw 13 innings and gave up three runs.

All of a sudden that great starting rotation was down to three that looked like they’d be ready for opening day and a couple of maybes. Both Owens and Johnson have looked like they are a long way from ready to fit into the rotation. 

The Bullpen, with Craig Kimbrel, the best Closer in baseball, when he’s on, and one of the worst, when he’s not, had added Tyler Thornburg, 8-5 with a 2.15 ERA with Milwaukee last year who was expected to be Kimbrel’s set up man for the eighth inning. He’s had problems with weakness in his shoulder and had only been in two games and given up seven runs in 1 1/3 innings.  If he is not ready for Opening Day, chances are that Joe Kelly will fill in as the set up man.

There is plenty of depth in the bullpen and Matt Barnes, Heath Hembree, Joe Kelly and lefty Robbie Ross have all looked good in the Spring as has Brandon Workman, back from surgery. 

Farrell is high on Fernando Abad for another lefty in the bullpen but he played in the WBC and just got back this week.  If I had to choose between Abad and 27 year old lefty Robby Scott, I would rather go with Scott who, in his first eight outings this spring had not given up a run and looked good in his short stint with the Sox last year.  The staff is also high on Noe Ramirez who has been shuttled back and forth from Pawtucket the past two years.  In two years, he has been in 31 games, thrown 26 innings and given up 15 earned runs for a 5.19 ERA.  There is too much talent in this bullpen to have him taking up a slot.

The wild card in the whole pitching situation could be the 32 year old Kendrick, who if he can regain his form can start or relieve.  He had pitched 23 innings in his first six appearances this spring with an ERA of 1.96.

In the course of the season last year, the Red Sox used 25 different pitchers and they had 36 available at the start of Spring Training this year.

There’s no reason to panic at this point, there still seems to be plenty of talent to get the job done.  If Price should turn out to need elbow surgery and/or another starter should go down, that could change things.

They have two days off in the first two full weeks of the season so that leaves a little wiggle room early for the starting rotation, but, the Red Sox are finding out that as Bill Shanks of the Macon Telegraph said in 2014 “You can never have too much pitching is unfortunately used when a team realizes that no matter how much depth it has in a rotation or a bullpen, it’s usually still not enough.”