After making team history last week in Sacramento during his major league debut, Red Sox (82-68) rookie Connelly Early (1-0, 0.00 ERA) will get the nod for his second career start on Tuesday.
Last Wednesday, his 11 strikeouts tied a franchise record for a Red Sox rookie debut, as the 23-year-old lefty dominated his way through five innings of work, allowing only 5 hits and 1 walk with 0 earned runs to his name.
He looked like an old pro on the mound in a 6-0 win over the A’s (70-80). And coincidentally enough, that’s who he’ll face again in start No. 2.
Here’s what Chris Smith of MassLive wrote on Monday about Early’s special start last week:
“He induced 19 swings and misses, the most by any MLB pitcher that day. He threw 28 four-seam fastballs (four swings and misses), topping out at 96.6 mph and averaging 94.2 mph. He also got six whiffs with his curveball and three whiffs each with his changeup, slider and sinker.”
If Early can sustain even 75% of that over the next two weeks, it would be massive for a starting rotation gasping for air as we enter the final stretch of the regular season.
The Red Sox also announced that following Early’s start on Tuesday, they’ll throw Lucas Giolito (10-4, 3.31 ERA) on Wednesday and Brayan Bello (11-7, 3.25) on Thursday. And if manager Alex Cora’s comments from Sunday night after his team’s 6-4 sweep-saving win over the Yankees (83-66) mean anything, logic would tell you Garrett Crochet (16-5, 2.63 ERA) will get the ball for game one of their three-game series with the Rays (73-76) starting Friday.
After that, it’s unclear what’s next.
Does Payton Tolle (0-1, 7.84 ERA) get another crack at it after flashing in his big league debut against Paul Skenes (10-9, 1.92 ERA) and the last-place Pirates (65-85), yet struggling in his next two starts against the Diamondbacks (75-75) and A’s?
Or what about Kyle Harrison (4.05 ERA)?
He finally got the call-up last week from Worcester after spending all his time in Triple-A once being shipped to the Red Sox organization as part of the return from the Giants (75-74) in the Rafael Devers trade. He’s 24 years old, and first made his major league debut with San Francisco in 2023.
Early, Tolle and Harrison are all guys Cora said on Friday would be a part of the mixed bag of young arms that will be used as the bridge to get this team to the postseason, where, in theory, they can survive with a three-man rotation of Crochet, Giolito and Bello (in some order).
With how tight the American League playoff picture is as of publishing, the way Cora handles these three-to-four starts down the stretch could have massive implications on who-and-where-or-if they will be playing in October.
Boston currently sits in the second of the three AL wild card spots, one game up on the Astros (81-69) and three games up on the Rangers (79-71). They’re 1.5 games behind New York for the first wild card position, and 5.5 games behind Toronto (87-62) for the AL East crown.
As has been mentioned many, many times across many, many mediums, the Red Sox have not been back to the postseason since losing 5-0 to the Astros in game six of the 2021 ALCS at Minute Maid Park in Houston.
If everything breaks down for Boston over the next four series and they do end up missing the postseason, it will be the first time since 1994 that the organization has missed the playoffs in four consecutive calendar years.
From 1991 through the end of the strike-shortened 1994 season, the Red Sox were 291-310, good for a .484 winning percentage.
If the season were to end today, their 319-317 combined record for the last four seasons would give them a .501 winning percentage.
An improvement of 17 percentage points over their last four-year run of mediocrity from nearly 30 years ago, yet mediocrity nonetheless.
Don’t become the mid-90s Red Sox. That’s bad company to keep.
First pitch for Tuesday night at Fenway Park is set for 6:45 p.m. ET, with Jeffrey Springs (10-11, 4.28 ERA) on the mound yet again for Oakland.
You have to imagine Early is hoping his offense gets to Springs the same way they did last Wednesday, as the lefty allowed 5 runs on 8 hits as the losing pitcher in a historic game for the rookie.
Tom Carroll is a contributor for Roundtable, with boots-on-the-ground coverage of all things Boston sports. He's a digital content producer for WEEI.com, and a native of Lincoln, RI.