Suddenly he doesn’t look like such a bad rotation option.
We’re two weeks into the season and Nick Pivetta is already boosting my credibility. While I don’t know how long this may last, I’m comfortable saying that I’d rather have Pivetta than probably ⅗ of the current Red Sox rotation.
As we all withered away watching another Sean Newcomb roller coaster, Pivetta gave his second start of the season in which he threw at least seven innings and allowed no runs against Colorado. Are the Rockies bad? Yes. Did the Rockies get blanked over an entire weekend series? Also yes. Did Nick Pivetta deliver only the second-best start of this series? For the third time, yes. But it was still a dominant 10-strikeout performance in which Pivetta allowed only four baserunners through seven innings.
I don’t know about you all, but I would personally like to see a Red Sox starting pitcher not named Garrett Crochet achieve a line anywhere close to this one, and as I made the case over the offseason, Pivetta could have been that. Let me be clear that there is no world in which he should be anywhere above a fourth or fifth starter for this Red Sox team, but I really would’ve liked to see that. As we know, Pivetta is one of the best innings-eaters that Boston has had in the past decade, and although no one could have predicted a trio of pitching injuries to begin the season, it would be nice to have that considering where we’re at now as far as pitching depth goes.
I mean, wouldn’t you all have liked to have watched this on Friday instead of another four-inning Sean Newcomb game where the White Sox, with the Red Sox’s help, put nearly two men on base every inning?
If you said no, you’re lying by the way.
While I believe it was rather unlikely that Pivetta would return if he wasn’t guaranteed to be a starter with Boston, I did expect him to accept a qualifying offer that was well over what most people valued him as being worth. But I do applaud him for betting on himself and finding something longer-term in an offseason that was rather devoid of any notable starting pitcher free agents.
Even though he’s definitely a point of controversy and could possibly find himself back in 4.00 ERA territory by this time next week, the value he provides as a workhorse, whether that comes from the bullpen or the starting rotation, is something Boston could really use right now. With a young rotation (even including Crochet), it would have been nice to have some solid production guaranteed (over the course of the season) at the back end.
But this 1.59 ERA start to the season is really looking good for Pivetta, and it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out over the course of the season. Perhaps he’s riding high on the early and unexpected success from the Padres and will come down to Earth by May, only time will tell — and that’s all a part of the Nick Pivetta Experience ™.