Tanner Houck should not be blamed for Boston's 6-5 loss at the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday night

Boston Red Sox pitcher Tanner Houck (left) celebrating the 4-2 win over the Cleveland Guardians with catcher and teammate Christian Vazquez (right) on Saturday, June 25th, 2022. (Photo from MLB.com Video: https://www.mlb.com/gameday/red-sox-vs-guardians/2022/06/25/663042#game_state=final,game_tab=videos,game=663042)

By: Evan Troxel

Boston Red Sox pitcher Tanner Houck should not be blamed for Boston’s 6-5 loss at the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday night.

He did not pitch on Tuesday night.

Houck cannot enter Canada to play regular season Major League Baseball games because he is not COVID-19 vaccinated.

The Canadian government will not allow unvaccinated Major League Baseball players into the country.

Houck has helped the Red Sox actually win more games than every Red Sox pitcher except for Nathan Eovaldi, Rich Hill, Nick Pivetta and Michael Wacha this regular season.

Houck’s sum total of victories is 3.436 this regular season.

He has even helped the Red Sox win more than Garrett Whitlock has, who Houck has essentially replaced as the (possible/potential) closer (except when the Red Sox are in Toronto, Ontario, Canada).

Boston would quite literally not be in the position they are in the division, the American League East and the current wild card standings if specific Red Sox pitchers would have pitched better and had not given up runs to the opponent.

Maybe I should talk about the relief pitchers today, but everyone knows that Tyler Danish messed up in last night’s game by letting Toronto Blue Jays get on-base and Hansel Robles did even worse because he allowed the tying run and the game-winning run to score in the bottom of the ninth, so I am not going to talk about relief pitchers today, at least for the most part.

Boston pitchers who should be getting more blame than Houck are Nathan Eovaldi, Rich Hill and Nick Pivetta.

Houck has lost 2.591 games this regular season. That is the fourth-worst on the team.

The Red Sox have lost six games when Nathan Eovaldi pitches, six games when Rich Hill pitches and seven games when Nick Pivetta pitches this regular season.

So that is nineteen games.

Houck only pitched in three of those losses and he pitched in relief for Rich Hill (for all three of those losses) and only gave up a run(s) in one of those losses.

Houck and Hill gave up zero runs at Tampa Bay on April 24th, Houck gave up seven runs on May 5th vs. the Los Angeles Angels, and Hill gave up all three runs on May 25th at the Chicago White Sox.

Other than Nathan Eovaldi, Rich Hill and Nick Pivetta, Matt Barnes, Hirokazu Sawamura and Ryan Brasier have lost the most (and in that order) in Nathan Eovaldi, Rich Hill and Nick Pivetta’s 19 combined starts.

Barnes has lost 2.179 games, Sawamura 1.427 games and Brasier 1.100 games of Eovaldi, Hill and Pivetta’s 19 combined starts.

For the record, Houck has only lost .781 games in Eovaldi, Hill and PIvetta’s starts combined so far this regular season.

Pivetta has lost 3.425 games, Eovaldi 2.976 losses and Hill 2.838 losses out of Boston’s 33 losses so far this regular season.

If the Red Sox had won half of the games that Eovaldi, Hill and Pivetta lost, so let’s just say Boston would have ten more wins, Boston’s record in the regular season would be 52-23.

That would mean that they would be 3 ½ games behind the 56-20 New York Yankees in the American League East before Wednesday night’s games.

Right now the Red Sox are 42-33 in the regular season and are 13 ½ games behind in the American League East division before Wednesday night’s games.

Red Sox fans were upset that Houck (when he was a starter) essentially screwed up the consistency of the starting rotation and the bullpen in April in the days leading up to before Boston’s first road trip to Toronto, and now they are mad that he cannot be there as the closer all because he doesn’t want to get a COVID-19 vaccine that can and will kill him.

The Boston Red Sox have won 12 straight games when he has pitched and the last time they lost, Houck gave up zero runs on May 25th. The last time Houck gave up runs in a loss was on May 15th.

The Red Sox are 13-1 when Houck has pitched since before the May 15th game.

Tanner Houck has proven that you don’t have to be COVID-19 vaccinated to be successful in Major League Baseball.

Before Tuesday night’s game, the Red Sox were also on a 12-game winning streak when John Schreiber pitched.

During Schreiber’s 12-game win streak, Houck pitched in eight of the same games as Schreiber did.

All of the Boston pitchers were quite aware that Houck probably wasn’t going to be available for this trip to Toronto in late June before, during and shortly after the Red Sox road trip to Toronto in April.

So the blame on Houck (and in many ways any blame at all) is not fair to him.

Also, Red Sox fans should embrace the fact that these games in Toronto are a real break for Houck.

Some players do need breaks, but they are usually expected to pitch every third or fourth day unless they are a starter.

I mean, what happens if Houck does pitch in Toronto?

Could things get worse in the long-term if he does pitch in Toronto and he did not get a few guaranteed games off?

Tanner Houck is the fifth-best pitcher on the Boston Red Sox right now.

He is the best pitcher on the Red Sox who has had more than one start this regular season.

Houck also is ranked 11th in terms of actual win percentage in which the pitcher is blamed for giving up runs and the pitcher improves his win percentage by getting more and more outs.

He is also the fifth-most unlucky pitcher on the Boston Red Sox so far this regular season. That means the Red Sox have a good chance to lose when he gives up a run(s) or a partial run.

The Red Sox are 16-6 in games he has pitched in this regular season.

Houck is 4-3 this regular season with a 3.42 ERA which is ranked 9th on the team. He also has six saves and he also has a 3.23 true run average and a 3.23 very true run average which are ranked 6th on the team.

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All statistics in this story are meant to be interpreted as after the Tuesday, June 28th, 2022 game and before the June 29th, 2022 game.

MORE NOTES: Very true run average and true run average include all runs scored. So they are not like earned runs. Very true run average is more accurate than true run average because it doesn't blame a pitcher for allowing a baserunner to start on second base in extra innings. True run average blames the pitcher for allowing a baserunner to start on second base to start extra innings. Other than that, very true run average and true run average are more accurate and truthful than earned run average (earned runs) and run average (runs).

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EXPLANATION OF ACTUAL WINS AND LOSSES (FOR TRUE RUNS AND VERY TRUE RUNS):

Actual won-lost records in the 2022 regular season for Boston Red Sox pitchers depending on the Boston Red Sox win/loss result for any one specific game

The "wins" are all games that the Boston Red Sox actually won. The "wins" are percentages of innings pitched for each pitcher. All of the percentages of innings pitched (of games the Red Sox actually won) are then added together to get "wins", which is what you see below. The "losses" can be thought of as the percentage of runs any one pitcher allowed the opposing team to score. These percentages of how many runs a pitcher allows in any one game to score are then added together for every game (and only of the games that the Red Sox actually lost) to get "losses". Pitchers who start any extra inning are blamed for allowing a baserunner to start the inning at second base (and any other additional bases they allow that baserunner to advance) if that baserunner eventually scores. The winning percentage is wins divided by wins plus losses.

The above paragraph talks about true runs and not very true runs when a pitcher allows a run(s). Otherwise, everything else can apply to anything that has to do with true runs and very true runs.

NOTE: For the purposes of this story alone, no pitcher is blamed for allowing a baserunner to start any extra inning at second base (but any pitcher who pitches in extra innings will be blamed for allowing that baserunner to advance any additional bases if that baserunner eventually scores). The previous sentence talks about very true runs and not true runs.

EXPLANATION OF A PITCHER'S PERFORMANCE (FOR TRUE RUNS AND VERY TRUE RUNS):

Actual won-lost records in the 2022 regular season for Boston Red Sox pitchers not depending on whether the Boston Red Sox actually win any one specific game or not.

In other words, this tells the complete picture of their entire regular season (the good and the bad) of how many people the pitcher got out (innings pitched) and how many runs the pitcher truthfully gave up (which is more accurate than runs or even earned runs given up). So to make this more easy for people to understand, starting pitchers (or the previous pitcher) don't 100% get blamed for the inherited runner(s) that the reliever(s) (or the next pitcher to pitch) allows to score. The starter (or previous pitcher) will get 25%, 50% or 75% blame for giving up one run instead, for an inherited runner that eventually scores.

Also, a pitcher can get a partial win and a partial loss in the same game. So pitchers that throw more innings pitched are going to get a higher percentage of partial wins and pitchers who give up more runs are going to get a higher percentage of partial losses. So if one pitcher pitches a complete game he will get one win (regardless of the team's win/loss result) and if the pitcher's team actually loses that same game in which he was the only pitcher who pitched for his team, he will also get credit for one loss.

The only time any pitcher cannot take a loss or a partial loss is if the winning team doesn't give up any runs to the team they are playing.

Basically, this is truly giving credit where credit is due among pitchers only.

The "wins" are percentages of innings pitched for each game for each pitcher. All of the percentages of each game are then added together and the sum total of all percentages for each game are "wins" (whether the Red Sox actually won that specific game or not) and are what you see below. The "losses" can be thought of as the percentage of runs that any one pitcher allowed the opposing team to score for each game. All of the percentages of runs given up for each game are then added together and the sum total of all of those numbers are the "losses" and what you see below. The "losses" presented here are represented as the total number of potential losses that a pitcher could have if the Red Sox actually lost every single game in which a pitcher gave up a run(s). The winning percentage is wins divided by wins plus losses.

NOTE: To not confuse people, in true runs, extra-inning pitchers do get blamed for allowing an opposing baserunner to start any extra inning at second base, if they score. In true runs, I have always blamed the extra-inning pitcher for allowing an opposing baserunner to start any extra inning at second base, if that baserunner eventually scores.

In very true runs, no pitcher gets blamed for allowing an opposing baserunner to start any extra inning at second base. But any extra-inning pitcher who allows the baserunner to start at second base who eventually scores will get blamed for allowing that baserunner to advance one or two bases if that baserunner eventually scores.