Last year he was the most consistent pitcher in the Sox’ starting rotation. In the early goings this year, he threw the MLB’s 21st perfect game on April 21st in Seattle. Since then he’s been rather terrible, as was highlighted by Tuesday night’s performance in which he let up 8 earned runs while only recording 1 out.
The one-time 3rd overall pick in the MLB draft now has a 6.50 ERA throughout 101.0 innings pitched, and we are left with two questions: should he be done and is he done?
For a while, Humber was mixing in good performances. Now, they’re all bad. Credit: rollingstones.com
Just yesterday on GrabSomeBench.com, we described it like this …
Last night was just another testament to my opinion about Humber and the fact that he’s no longer a major league pitcher. Maybe a change of scenery will work, or maybe he just needs an offseason to work on his mechanics going right. But does this mean that he’s “done” with the Sox, even maybe just for this year? No.
What you have to remember is that in September, a ball club can call up any or all of the players on its 40-man roster as opposed to only being able to have 25 like in April through August. Of the 40 men on that roster, the Sox currently have 33 called up, so they can bring up any of the other 7 whenever they want – a demotion to Phil Humber isn’t necessary.
Should Humber be done at least for this year? Yes. But with concerns surrounding Chris Sale and Jose Quintana’s durability going forward, the team can use all the help they can get. They can keep bringing him in only in games that the Sox have already won or lost so he doesn’t hurt the team any further. Say he’s able to perform better in those performances; maybe that’d mean he’s figuring it out and could indeed give the Sox a valuable spot start in 2 or 3 weeks … who knows.
The point is that Phil Humber will likely stay with the team; there’s no reason to send him packing with rosters configuring like they do in September. We may not see him as much in the immediate future, but he’ll be down there in the ‘pen just in case.
His curious case does not make much sense. He’s got great stuff and he’s shown how good he can be, even to the most extreme sense like back on April 21st. Will he perform well again? Probably. Will it be this year? Probably not. Will it be for the Sox? We’ll see …