BOSTON — While Brayan Bello celebrated his birthday by striking out seven Wednesday, Nick Pivetta sat and watched from the bullpen. Turns out, that’s where he’ll be for the foreseeable future.
After a 12-3 win against the Mariners — and after using a six-man rotation for the past week — the Red Sox announced that Pivetta will move out of the rotation and into a relief role. He’ll be available out of the bullpen this weekend in San Diego.
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“You’re not putting him in the witness protection program,” chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said. “You’re putting him out there to leverage him and help you win. He cares about that, so I think he’ll be fine.”
With the rotation overcrowded by design, Pivetta was the odd man out as the Red Sox go back to a traditional five-man rotation with Bello, James Paxton, Chris Sale, Corey Kluber and Tanner Houck. Pivetta will be used primarily for long relief, manager Alex Cora said, a role in which two young starters-turned-relievers, Kutter Crawford and Josh Winckowski, have thrived this season.
The role won’t be entirely new for Pivetta. He pitched out of the bullpen 17 times for the Phillies in 2019, and although his numbers weren’t great in that role (4.38 ERA, 1.58 WHIP, .839 opponents’ OPS) his strikeout rate did climb, and 13 of those relief appearances were generally effective (short appearances with no runs, or multiple innings with no more than one earned). Pivetta also pitched well out of the bullpen at the end of the 2021 season and twice during the 2021 division series. But he’s mostly been a starter and had made clear that he preferred to stay that way. Bloom said Pivetta was “professional” upon hearing the news that he was moving to the bullpen. Even though he wasn’t available Wednesday, Pivetta said he wanted to embrace the new role by watching with the other relievers.
“I just don’t think I make this about me,” he said. “I’ve got to pitch better, and I’ve got to go and start and do that right there. The better I do out of the bullpen, the more I can help the team win and move us towards our overall goal of winning the World Series. I think that’s what’s most important.”
Although he didn’t have the resume of the team’s veterans or the perceived upside of its younger starters, Pivetta entered the season as perhaps the Red Sox’s most reliable source of innings. He’d made 30 or more starts each of the past two years, something no other Red Sox pitcher had done, but Pivetta also had a career ERA higher than the other rotation candidates. While he got off to a tremendous start — one earned run in his first 10 innings — Pivetta pitched to an 8.10 ERA in his past six starts.
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After an off day Thursday, Paxton, Sale and Kluber will start this weekend’s three-game series in San Diego. Those are the veterans of the bunch — all at least 34 years old with 648 major-league starts combined — and none has worked regularly as a reliever in more than a decade. Kluber has been underwhelming this season (6.41 ERA), but Sale has a 3.16 ERA in his past five starts (2.21 in his past three), and Paxton pitched well in his return from the injured list Friday (five innings, two runs). Given their track records, those three seem to have earned at least some benefit of the doubt, locking them into rotation jobs at least for now.
The Red Sox are choosing to round out their rotation with Bello and Houck, both homegrown starters. Bello, who turned 24 on Wednesday, is one of the most highly-touted pitching prospects the organization has developed in recent years, and his strong start against the Mariners lowered his season ERA to 4.55, the lowest of any current Red Sox starter. He has a 2.57 ERA in his past four starts. The last time the Red Sox had more starters than spots this year, Bello was temporarily optioned to Triple A, but that didn’t seem to be a consideration this time.
“He has the ability to dominate hitters,” Bloom said. “He’s done that there, and he’s shown glimpses of how much better he can get.”
Houck, 26, has struggled his second and third times through the order — typically cruising in his first three innings before struggling later in the game — but the Red Sox have never fully given up on him as a starter, even as they’ve occasionally moved him into the bullpen throughout his big-league career.
The Red Sox might soon have to decide whether to do that again as Garrett Whitlock nears his return from ulnar neuritis in his right elbow. Whitlock is scheduled to make one more rehab start Sunday before presumably rejoining the rotation, perhaps by next weekend. At that point — assuming everyone stays healthy — the Red Sox likely will have to move someone else into the bullpen.
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“I hope so,” Bloom said. “Because it means we continue to have this good problem. This is not something you take for granted, and it may not be this way the whole season. We’re already in a position where, the way I look at it, we have multiple starters out there (in the bullpen) and they’ve been helping us win already. A lot of that is by design, but we know the season has a long way to go. There’s a lot of ups and downs, so we have to be ready for anything. And I think the beauty of this role is it allows us to continue being ready for anything, but in the meantime not to leave any cards up our sleeve in terms of having these guys help us win right now.”
(Photo of Nick Pivetta: Nick Grace / Getty Images)
