Michael Wacha, ace of the 2023 Boston Red Sox, has a nice ring to it.

And it’s not far from reality.

After Wacha threw 5 2/3 shutout innings in the Sox’ 4-3 win over the Orioles on Saturday, he improved to 8-1 with a 2.28 ERA.

His 3.2 WAR makes him the third-most valuable player on the Red Sox roster behind Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts, according to Baseball-Reference. And he’s only made 15 starts.

Wacha hasn’t looked this good since his 17-win season with the 2015 St. Louis Cardinals, when he was considered a budding star and an emerging ace of a very good Cardinals pitching staff.

With the 2022 Red Sox fading into obscurity and possessing only a snowball’s chance in Havana of making the postseason, it’s time to think about what the 2023 Red Sox staff might look like.

Chris Sale will still be under contract, but he has made just 11 starts in the last four seasons and, given his myriad of injuries, is not someone the Red Sox can rely on.

Rich Hill, 42, will be eligible for free agency this winter.

James Paxton, recovering from Tommy John surgery, has a $13-million option but hasn’t thrown a pitch this year. He recently had his rehab assignment put on pause after coming out of a game with a lat strain.

Rookies Kutter Crawford and Josh Winckowski will join Sale and Nick Pivetta as the only starting pitchers sure to return to the 2023 Red Sox rotation.

There’s also Nathan Eovaldi, who had his upcoming start pushed back again due to trap soreness. He hasn’t looked healthy since June. But he’s eligible for free agency and, because of his sharp decrease in fastball velocity and the team’s several indications that he wasn’t healthy when they rushed him back from the injured list on July 15, it’s looking unlikely that he’d receive a one-year qualifying offer.

Wacha is a different story altogether.

Signed to a one-year, $7 million contract after a down year with the Rays, Wacha has looked like a bargain for Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom, who could’ve used a few more of them.

The Sox have ignored the top-tier starting and relief pitchers on the free agent and trade markets since Bloom took over the front office in 2019. Instead, they’ve opted to spend smaller on more guys, taking one- and two-year fliers on veterans coming off down years.

Wacha, who had a 5.11 ERA with the Mets, Cardinals and Rays over the last three years, is looking like the best of the bunch.

The one-year, $5 million flier on Hill hasn’t worked out, nor has the $10 million guaranteed to Paxton. Paxton has back-to-back $13-million club options in 2023 and 2024, though it’s hard to see the Sox committing that kind of money to him given he hasn’t made an impact this year.

If the Sox are going to give a qualifying offer to any of their free agent pitchers, Wacha is looking like the guy.

Committing a one-year contract likely to be worth around $20 million to a starting pitcher who has an ERA near 2.00 seems like a no-brainer, regardless of Wacha’s five-year stretch of inconsistency and injuries.

Wacha’s story isn’t that different from that of Kevin Gausman, who parlayed one good year with the Giants in 2021 into a five-year, $110 million deal with the Blue Jays.

In the five years before his breakout season, Gausman averaged 24 starts with a 4.27 ERA.

In Wacha’s five years before his breakout campaign this year, he averaged 21 starts with a 4.51 ERA.

Both were former top prospects who were highly regarded when they broke into the league, but ran into some health issues that derailed the middle of their careers.

Now Gausman is the ace of the Blue Jays and helping them chase down the Yankees in the American League East.

The 31-year-old Wacha is throwing the best changeup of his career, holding batters to a stunning .155 average and .206 slugging percentage that makes it one of the best pitches in baseball this year.

He is the clear ace of the Red Sox, who may not have one next year.

If the Sox get anything from Sale, it ought to be considered a bonus. But without Wacha, a rotation of Pivetta and a few rookies isn’t going to put this team in contention next year.

Surely, they’ll need to make a handful of key additions if they intend to compete in 2023, the last season Devers is under contract.

The Sox might need to make Wacha a qualifying offer and hope he signs it, and at the very least they’ll end up with draft pick compensation on the other end.

Without him, they won’t have much of a rotation.

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