Red Sox 2, White Sox 9: A broken pitcher goes unfixed

The Red Sox really shook things up Wednesday night. After four and five runs in the first innings of games one and two respectively, in game three they waited until the second to be hopelessly buried!

Progress? Progress! Wait, no, not progress. Not really.

They were behind 2-0 in the first as Rick Porcello gave up Yet Another Home Run®, then got themselves right along to 5-0 in the second as a series of base hits completed his unravelling, culminating with a walk and a hit batter to load the bases and then drive in a run. He finished his night by surrendering yet another Yet Another Home Run® and a double to start the third.

I don't know, does anyone even care at this point? 6-0 after three doesn't seem particularly different from 5-0 after two or 5-0 after one or 4-0 after one. This has been just a remarkable sequence of games from the Red Sox against Chicago. A tour de force of bad pitching to match the offensive travesty that was the Los Angeles series to begin the second half. The Red Sox lost. Of course they lost.

The thing is, each terrible start was so similar, but brought its own special story. For Kelly it's the story of a lost cause (at least in the rotation). For Miley, it's the story of a player who just can't put together the 3 or 4 good starts in a row it would take to actually make his season seem "turned around." And for Porcello? For Porcello it's the story of a completely broken pitcher. One who is so far removed from the pitcher of 2014 that it's clearly not just a bad stretch or luck or anything like that.

He is broken. Which means he must be fixed. Perhaps that entails a trip to the disabled list. Perhaps there's an actual underlying medical issue that needs to be discovered before it can be dealt with. All we seem to know is that throwing him out there every fifth game isn't doing a damn thing to help.

Brian Johnson and Henry Owens are likely going to be up in the immediate future. Joe Kelly is obviously out, and hopefully for good, with a trip to the bullpen in his immediate future. The prevailing sentiment seems to be that Steven Wright will be joining him. I can only hope, as much for Porcello's sake as all of ours, that this is not the case. The knuckleball may be a coinflip, but it's not going to get any better or worse by sticking around up here or going to Pawtucket.

Rick Porcello, on the other hand? Maybe, just maybe he can be fixed.