Shorted.
You could stretch to sugarcoat things and point out that Ross Detwiler allowed only three Royals runs in Thursday’s start, in which he delivered a career-high 108 pitches, but that would be a remarkable effort at spin.
It took Detwiler those 108 pitches to record a mere 15 outs, and it continued a disturbing trend.
In the 29-year-old’s first Rangers start, he was relieved by Logan Verrett.
In his next start, he handed the ball off to Stolmy Pimentel.
Next start: Anthony Bass (in the third inning, which Detwiler kicked off having been given a 7-2 lead).
Next: Bass again.
In Detwiler’s next start, his 7-4-1-1-2-7 gem against Houston, Keone Kela took over for the eighth.
Detwiler’s start after that: Bass.
Yesterday: Bass.
Detwiler (0-5, 6.95) still doesn’t have a win as a Ranger, and part of the reason for that even when he’s pitching reasonably well he isn’t getting deep into games. And when you’re not getting deep into games, you force the manager to dip into the bottom of the bullpen, because he has the rest of the day, and the next few after that, to map out. And when you’re relying on the bottom of the bullpen that often, it shouldn’t be surprising when games tend to get out of hand.
And the bottom of this bullpen, out of medical necessity, has featured a number of pitchers who wouldn’t be here at all if the pitching staff were healthy to start the season, and in Verrett and Pimentel’s case, aren’t here any more. Whether Bass, whose effectiveness has waned lately, survives as the bullpen continues to regain health is less than certain.
Detwiler’s own hold on a job — at least the one he’s been entrusted with so far — would seem to be tenuous, but the reason he’s been given the ball as often as he has is that Martin Perez, Derek Holland, and Matt Harrison aren’t ready to return, Anthony Ranaudo (3-0, 2.87 in six AAA starts but with 18 walks in 31.1 innings) hasn’t earned his way back to Texas, and Chi Chi Gonzalez (2-4, 4.50 in six AAA starts) hasn’t been consistent and isn’t considered quite ready. Unless you want to roll the dice by going to Jerad Eickhoff or the Phil Klein experiment or Ross Wolf, you’re stuck with Detwiler for the time being, and now’s probably a decent time to thank goodness for Wandy Rodriguez.
The part about Detwiler that frustrates me more than any other it’s not an issue of inferior stuff. He has innings (and has had one game) when he looked like a guy you could get behind taking a chance on, as the Rangers did this winter. (The players Texas gave up for him, incidentally: Second baseman Chris Bostick, repeating Low A, is hitting .224/.285/.288, and righthander Abel De Los Santos, in his first run at AA hitters, has a 6.39 ERA and .288/.345/.500 opponents’ slash.) I actually look forward to the time when Detwiler is repurposed as a reliever, when I think his stuff could play up and the pitch count issue won’t be as magnified and won’t handicap the rest of the team so much.
That transition just doesn’t seem to be imminent, and that’s not because of his arsenal or the upside that scouts saw. It’s because there just really aren’t tempting alternatives to Ross Detwiler right now.
A career-high 108 pitches in five innings just isn’t very encouraging, especially when a lot of them miss the target by a foot (usually up), and when, as has been the case in almost every Detwiler start this season, they cause the day on which you send your least effective starter to the mound to also be a day on which you end up having to use your least effective relievers. Hard not to expect different results.