![]() Forget high-leverage situations, the 35-year-old reliever struggled in two garbage-time relief appearances this week.Īfter giving up a three-run homer to give the Twins a 10-2 berth on Wednesday, he got the ball for the ninth on Thursday, and was unable to pitch a clean inning. While Houck keeps proving he deserves to stay in the rotation, Ryan Brasier has made it hard to see why he’s still on the roster. “From the first inning, something that stood out to me was his sinker against righties … he had a really good cutter today, and that splitter was really good as well. He’s got really nasty stuff,” Kiké Hernández said. “He had pretty good command of every pitch. In the longest start of his career, he was able to maintain fairly consistent velocity his third-hardest pitch of the game was a 95.1 mph sinker in the seventh. Houck threw 19 splitters (19.8%) on Thursday, pummeling the bottom half of the strike zone. The splitter obviously adds a different element as well, that they have to respect.” “It just gets them off those two, it gets lefties off of the sinker a little bit more, with the cutter. It just helps set up my two best pitches, between the sinker and the slider,” he explained of his upgraded arsenal. Houck expanded his pitch mix this year, too, enabling him to be a more viable starting option. ![]() “If he can harness his stuff in the strike zone, he can go deeper into the game,” Cora said, “It’s not about his ability, or third time through the lineup, it’s kind of like, efficient, the stuff is going to be better. Were Houck to stay in the rotation, what’s the key to him continuing to pitch deep into games? He’d gotten pulled from most starts before having to face the lineup for the third time.īut his manager doesn’t necessarily see it that way. Since Houck’s brief debut in 2020, the concern has been that he couldn’t be effective as a starter without a more varied pitch arsenal, because hitters would figure him out after an at-bat or two. He was “very aggressive in the zone,” Cora lauded. No matter, the overall result was stupendous. He recorded two outs in the seventh before giving up a two-run homer to Willi Castro. In setting a new career-high for innings pitched, Houck’s final line took a significant hit. He worked his way out of a jam in the fourth, and didn’t allow an extra-base hit or run until the fifth. He only needed 36 pitches (24 strikes) to mow down the Minnesotans. Seven innings, six hits, three earned runs, one walk, seven strikeouts, 96 pitches, 63 strikes.Įntering Thursday’s game, the rotation had a first-inning ERA over 11 Houck no-hit the Twins through the first three frames, giving them one walk and striking out five. 20, 2020), but turned it into a career day by completing the seventh for the first time. On Thursday, the 26-year-old righty not only went six innings for the first time since his second major league game (Sept. At the time, the expectation was that Houck would move back to the bullpen as soon as one of the aforementioned pitchers was ready to be activated, but four times through the rotation now, he’s been one of the most consistent, effective arms.Ĭan they afford to move him to the bullpen? Better question: why should they? The 26-year-old righty was originally slated to start the season in the bullpen, but reverted back to a starting role when Garrett Whitlock, Brayan Bello and James Paxton weren’t ready for the Opening Day roster. The Red Sox currently have an abundance of starting pitching, but maintain they want to keep a five-man rotation on a consistent basis, though Cora notably said “or six” after Houck’s performance. “It wasn’t a tryout,” Alex Cora said after Tanner Houck pitched a career-high seven innings in Thursday afternoon’s 11-5 series finale victory over the Minnesota Twins. ![]()
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