Now, it's time to take the slow walk to the bullpen and accept your role as a garbage-time reliever or emergency start-spotter. At 45, Wakefield has become excruciating to watch. Even last night as we watched the Sox go up 2-0 early, only to watch Wake serve up the lead over the next three batters. The Sox go up again, only to watch Wake immediately hand the lead right back. As a player on the bench, this has to be demoralizing. To the Sox' credit they didn't get frustrated and kept on crushing the ball (it didn't hurt that Brandon Morrow was on the mound, who started the game with an ERA north of 9.00 against the Sox), but I've watched Wakefield give up leads way too often during this season and I really do believe that has an impact on a lineup.
Due to the poor play of the last 10 games or so (certainly not all Wake's fault, of course), the Sox now find themselves in a dogfight to even make the playoffs. We can't afford acts of loyalty over effectiveness right now. Despite the recent struggles, I still see the Sox as being able to trot out 2 shut-down starters and a more than serviceable number 3 in Bedard once he's fully healthy. I actually think Buchholz will pitch again this year in the regular season and I think he will be better than you think. After that you've got a batch of pretty bad options to choose from: Lackey, Miller, Wakefield, and Pawtucket flavor of the week (currently Kyle Weiland, who's done nothing to make me think he's going to contribute anything significant this season). Miller has the ability to throw a two-hit shut-out, but is more likely to give up 7 runs in an inning. The Sox don't trust him anymore (he's being skipped in this next go-round in favor of Kyle Weiland, if that tells you anything) and I think his time here is just about done. The Pawtucket starters are just not ready for prime-time... Lackey has been gawd-awful again recently, after showing signs of settling in. There's no good option here, but the "eye-test" tells me that while at least at times Lackey has been somewhat effective, I can't remember any time this season where I felt Wake was just in control of a game. He gets hammered all too regularly. His knuckler just doesn't dance like it used to, for whatever reason, and experienced batters who've seen a knuckleball before are just feasting on it, using the "if it's high let it fly" rule of thumb.
If you asked me to name my 5-man rotation for the rest of this season, assuming Becket returns fully healthy, it would be: Lester, Becket, Bedard (he'll be back after the Tampa series I think), Lackey and a combination of Weiland, maybe Miller (if he shows any signs of being able to throw consistent strikes), and even the now healthy Junichi Tazawa.
And here's one of the main reasons: Due to the poor performances of Sox' starting pitchers over the past month, the bullpen is just wiped. This has started to show with recent downturns by relievers like Matt Albers and even Daniel Bard, who were great most of the year. The Sox desperately need a guy out of the pen who can chew up innings, especially in games that are out of reach, one way or the other. Alfredo Aceves has been used for the long relief role but frankly he's too valuable and has been too over-used to continue using him in this fashion. Wakefield can pitch more often and longer because of the knuckleball, and at this stage I think that's where his best value is.
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