The Red Sox September Review. Part Two: Starting Pitchers.

Instead of evaluating the whole pitching staff performance through September, I thought it may be more accurate to evaluate what the 4 starting pitchers have performed against the competition.

John Lester

Before going to Lester's September, I've made this tab to show you how good he was this year even by his last year's standards:

• Although the ERA is up, the other peripheral shows that Lester has been unlucky which he wasn't last year.
• Lester has lowered his FIP despite the fact that he gave up more HRs this year (HR/9 is .91 to last year .60) by substantially increasing his strikeouts numbers.

Now, if we look into September numbers, we'll find out that despite his last 2 outings in Baltimore and NY, John Lester has been equal to his 2009 (high) standards by posting a: 3.07 ERA and 3.77 FIP. The increase in FIP is due to an increased home run per fly ball rate during that span (17.4% HR/FB, a number unlikely to be reproduced if you consider Lester's 9% career rate), so apparently everything looks fine? No, not completely!

When you consider Lester's 2 last outing, he's been hit hard 31.4% of his batted balls have been line drives and 42.9% of the fly balls have been turned into HRs: The causes of that "mini slump" maybe multiple although the fatigue factor is certainly not the only explanation (he's still, at 197 IP, under his 2008 210.1 IP mark). But, as he showed us after his horrific season debut, he's very capable of rebounding and storming into October in the fashion that we know he can!

Josh Beckett

A look at September stats could confirm that his 5 games slump is over! Beckett has been sporting a 2.93 FIP to go with 3.66 ERA, a look at his last two outings shows us that he's even heating up at the right time by 3.21 ERA with a dominant 2.23 FIP.

A look at the batted balls in his last 2 outings shows us that when he's not striking out hitters, Beckett is giving them weak contact:

LD% 17%

GB% 48.9%

Although his BABIP is very high at .414, we can conclude that with better luck Beckett could turn into the asset that the nation has been accustomed to.

Clay Buchholz

Despite his awful Start against Toronto (who inflated his FIP), Clay has been arguably the best pitcher in the team with a 2.87 ERA and 51.7 GB% (which could explain his low BABIP) and a team second best 2.15 BB/9.

The 6 HRs game should not be concerning mainly because Buchholz , unlike Brad Penny, is not a fly ball pitcher as his Batted Ball charts shows:

Let's see if in his final start, Clay could rebound after being roughed up by the Jays which is very probable because all the facts mentioned above tend to show that Tuesday's game was an isolated event.

Daisuke Matsuzaka:

In Dice-K case, the numbers, as usual, are unconventional: take a look at the disparity between his ERA and his FIP

But we have to consider that the sample size is very small to predict further performances', although we could make the case that this is vintage 2008 Matsuzaka and I would definitely take that from my number 4 starter.

Conclusion:

Like this guy, I think that if every member of this pitching staff performs at their season standards, this team is tough to beat although defense and luck plays a major role in the final stats line.

And as usual, remember what Beane says about the playoffs!