Red Sox Need to Rebound

            Opening night is just six days away. That’s right, six days. The Red Sox open up on the road in Philadelphia, but if you have a hard time believing that there’s going to be baseball being played in Boston next month, you’re not alone. So now that the 2015 MLB season is upon us, lets have an in depth look at the Red Sox roster, and what to look for on this year’s team.

Pitching staff

            In my opinion, the Red Sox simply did not do enough to their rotation. They have made not having an ace seem way less important than it actually is. If the Red Sox didn’t have Jon Lester to lead their rotation in 2013 there’s no way they would have ever been able to win the World Series. This year, the Sox will rely on Clay Buchholz to lead the rotation, which sounds like the makings for disaster to me. Buchholz is injury-prone, at times unreliable, and in nobody’s opinion any sort of an ace.

            There is a good chance that Joe Kelly, who could have some sort of a biceps injury, will start the season on the disabled list, and if he does, knuckleballer Stephen Wright will take his place. If not, here’s what I think the Red Sox rotation will look like: 1. Clay Buchholz, 2. Rick Porcello, 3. Justin Masterson, 4. Wade Miley, 5. Joe Kelly. Those five averaged a combined earned run average of 3.77 last year, so they don’t look terrible on paper. However, all of those guys are prone to injury in a big way, which is extremely concerning. When a starter goes down, it is a huge blow for a team, and by the looks of this rotation, we could be seeing multiple starting pitchers going down at a time, which can’t happen on a team that is competing for a playoff spot. The go-to guy if a pitcher get hurt is going to be Stephen Wright. Wright is a knuckleballer who has been in the Red Sox’s organization since 2012, and John Farrell seems to be very high on him. If there’s one thing that’s going to keep the Sox from winning the division it’s their pitching rotation, but they do have a group of veterans who could be quite capable of surprising us pleasantly if they can stay healthy. It is somewhat of the same situation out in the bullpen, where the issue of health is just as prominent. Sox closer Koji Uehara simply isn’t the pitcher that he was in 2013. He is older this year, and that means that he’ll have to rely more on his cutter instead of his fastball, which is a big problem for the Sox. At the end of last year, Koji’s cutter looked more like a Tim Wakefield fastball than anything else. He’s probably put in a decent about of work to fix that problem in the offseason, but I just don’t think he’s going to last as the Red Sox closer.

Offense

            While the pitching staff isn’t rebuilt the way I’d like it to be, the Sox did do a good job putting together an offense that’s going to score a lot of runs. They added the power bats of Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez to the middle of their lineup, giving David Ortiz a lot of protection and the Red Sox the chance to contend in the AL East. If there’s one thing that was clear to me when I was down at Spring Training in Fort Myers, FL, it was that Hanley Ramirez is an absolute beast. CBS Sports reported in February that Ramirez had bulked up to 240 pounds now that he’s moving to left field, which is an enormous difference from the scrawny little shortstop that showed up at Red Sox camp back in 2005. Pablo Sandoval was criticized at the beginning of the spring that he didn’t keep fit in the offseason, but I don’t see that being too much of a problem considering how he’s played in Spring Training games. While Sandoval and his 191 career homers are a huge help offensively to the Sox, he’s also a good defensive third baseman for his size. The notion that the Panda has no range is false, and even though he’s big, he won’t be any sort of a liability for the Red Sox defensively this year. The other guy who really impressed me down at Spring Training was Mookie Betts. If you had to put together a highlight real from Red Sox camp so far, Mookie would probably make up about half of it. He is quick, powerful, and has a great baseball mind. At the beginning of Spring Training I thought that Cuban outfielder Rusney Castillo would be the Red Sox’s starting center fielder come opening day, but it is clear now that Betts has the job. He will likely bat leadoff for the BoSox, filling the much-needed roll that Jacoby Ellsbury left empty when he departed last season.

            My prediction is that the Red Sox will finish second in the AL East, not getting the wild card spot, and missing the playoffs for the second straight year. The division is there for the taking, as it is as weak as I’ve ever seen it, but the Red Sox don’t have the pitching to capitalize on the opportunity.

Contact Jasper Goodman at jgoodman@radiovermont.com. Follow him on Twitter @Jasper_Goodman