JABO: Meet the New and Almost Identical Joe Kelly

Not unlike the rest of us, the Red Sox are just tossing in the surf waiting for the inevitable to happen. Inevitable demise = fun! Their starting pitching is a huge reason why they’re in this unenviable position, and as a starting pitcher for Boston, Joe Kelly is an individual part of that collective failure. Boston was depending on him to pitch like a major-league starter, to be serviceable, but mostly Kelly was just bad. But now, all of the sudden, he’s pitching well! Kelly has always had potential if not results to spare. Does the past month cancel out the rest of the season before it? Is Kelly a good pitcher now and, if so, should he be considered a part of the Red Sox’s rotation next season? Some people are saying yes. I’m saying slow down, some people!

On Aug. 1, Joe Kelly gave up five runs in five innings to Tampa Bay, the lowest-scoring team in the American League. That brought Kelly’s ERA up to 6.11, the highest it had been all season. It’s hard to call that the low point of Kelly’s season because he previously pitched so badly he was sent down to Triple-A, so perhaps we can stipulate it to be one of multiple low points. What’s worse: Slipping and falling into a cake, or the fact it was your boss’ wedding? Tough choice! In Kelly’s case we can ignore which is the lowest point, call it a bad season and move on to the rest of this article.

The lousiness of Kelly and his rotation-mates was not an insignificant point in now-ex-GM Ben Cherington getting replaced as head of baseball operations in Boston. Now, with new team president Dave Dombrowski in charge, the team is using the last few weeks of the season to assess players already on the roster in order to determine what must be done this offseason in preparation for next year. You might think the whole 6.11 ERA thing would have sealed Kelly’s fate, but over his past five starts Kelly is 5-0 with a 1.69 ERA. So, hooray, right? This is the Joe Kelly the team traded for last season! The one with great stuff, the one who can be a contributing member of a major-league rotation on the cheap, the one who can grow a mustache that you might not laugh at immediately upon seeing it (but you should)!

People are already writing Kelly into next year’s rotation because when we believe a player is capable of something and he goes out on the field and conforms to our beliefs, we tend to not look past those beliefs to any greater truths. “Joe Kelly: part of the failure of 2015” is now “Joe Kelly: part of the solution for 2016.” But is this Joe Kelly really any different from the one we saw earlier this season?

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