Sox Steal Two of Three in Chicago

Boston took two games in three from the White Sox this week. And I am not exactly sure how they did it.

Across all three games, the Sox totaled just 14 hits. That includes a 14-inning marathon Wednesday night. They left 28 men on base over all three games and went 5-27 with runners in scoring position for a whopping .185 average.

And yet somehow, they won two of three games.

Truth is, they probably should have won all three games despite their continuing hitting problems. But Game One got away from them on a bad throw from Xander Bogaerts. That is his second error of the year. He's still a rookie so it is not all that surprising to see a bad throw here and there. It was just really bad timing. And it wasted a solid outing from Jake Peavy, who went six innings and only gave up one run on three hits. He has a 1.93 ERA so far in 2014 and is looking pretty solid.

Then Wednesday night we had the 14-inning spectacular that saw Boston score only three runs over the first nine innings despite nine walks, four hits, a hit batter and a wild pitch. Both teams then added a run in the 11th before Jackie Bradley uncorked a two-run double in the 14th inning to get Boston ahead for good. That was Boston's sixth hit of the entire night.

Last night was Boston's best game of the series. Despite being outhit again (Chicago had more hits in all three games) they won 2-1 on the back of a lights-out performance from Jon Lester. Eight innings of one-run ball. Seven hits, nine strikeouts and no walks. He threw 67% of his pitches for strikes and threw a first-pitch strike to 70% of the batters he faced.

Even awesome pitchers need run support

But you can't allow yourself to look at these two wins and pretend that the Red Sox have gotten things straightened out. As I said before, their pitching is the only thing keeping them going right now.

For example, look at Chris Capuano. Here's a guy I was very skeptical about joining the team. All he's done so far is throw nine innings of relief, strikeout eight, allow no runs and earn two holds. Capuano has a 0.67 WHIP right now. And his 2.2 innings of scoreless, walk-free relief Wednesday night earned him his first win of the season. I was wrong about him. But Capuano is indicative of the overall quality of the Sox pitching staff. Sure, there have been hiccups here and there. But overall, a very solid start to 2014.

The danger here is that this pitching will mask Boston's atrocious hitting. And it is atrocious.

Red Sox Sign Chris Capuano to One-Year Deal

I am not going to pretend that I am thrilled about this news. As I said in my last post, I was much more interested in bringing Jeff Neimann into camp. Nevertheless, Capuano is coming to Boston on a one-year, incentive-laden deal.

The Red Sox have signed lefthander Chris Capuano to a one-year contract worth $2.25 million. An announcement is expected later today or on Friday.

The deal includes incentives worth a possible $2.75 million. Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington indicated that the team was close to a move that would bolster its pitching depth.

This would be said move. Capuano went 4-7 last year with a 4.26 ERA. He threw 105.2 innings in 20 starts (24 appearances overall). His WHIP was 1.410. None of that gives me confidence.

And this also worries me. There is a stat called Runs Allowed per Nine Innings, or RA9. By itself, it is simply ERA with unearned runs included. Capuano's RA9 for 2013 was 4.85. There is another stat called RA9avg. This is an estimate of what an average pitcher would have done in these games with everything else being equal. The RA9avg for the average pitcher is 3.70. Which means Capuano, by this metric, was a full run worse per nine innings than an average pitcher in his position.

Not good.