Lefty Joe Jacques is standing out as bright spot in WooSox bullpen
When you look into the stats of the pitching staff in Worcester this season, the numbers aren’t on the good side.
There have been 469 hits given up in 430 innings thrown by WooSox pitchers. There have been 306 runs that have scored in those 430 innings. The total combined ERA of the team is 5.48.
That trend needs to start reversing itself.
The WooSox are getting much needed bullpen help with the promotion of right hander Theo Denlinger from Double-A Portland.
Denlinger will be a welcome addition along with a rebound from a few guys who have come out of the gates struggling. However, there have been a few bright spots in the bullpen in Worcester. Lefty Joe Jacques has been a fairly pleasant surprise since coming over via the Minor League portion of the Rule 5 Draft.
Jacques has been pretty sturdy for a rather shaky pitching staff. He carries a 3.74 ERA over his 20 appearances and has only walked six batters in his 21 innings of work. His splits show that he has also been shutting down left handed batters.
Left handed hitters are hitting .174 off of Jacques on the season, and are carrying an OPS of .438. The strikeouts against lefties have been impressive as 14 of his 19 total strikeouts on the year are against lefties. Overall, 14 of his 20 appearances have been scoreless frames. Recently, Jacques was used as an opener for a game against Scranton and threw two scoreless frames and gave up only one hit. He only walked three batters in the entire month of May, which will help his case in being used in more high leverage situations in the WooSox bullpen even against righties.
WooSox manager Chad Tracy has mentioned that Jacques has been working with pitching coach Paul Abbott on his changeup this year, and Tracy believes their work will “help him go both ways and get right handers out consistently”.
There will be an upward battle for Jacques to receive a call to the big leagues, as Brennan Bernardino and Ryan Sherriff are both on the 40-man roster in Worcester’s bullpen that just so happen to be left handers as well. If he can lower the hits and base traffic from right handers, Jacques could be looking closer to helping out the Red Sox bullpen down the stretch.
Follow Andrew on Twitter @ByAndrewParker
For additional Red Sox and Major League Baseball content, follow Beyond the Monster: Boston Red Sox on Twitter @BeyondtheMnstr
Join our new Facebook group for all of our latest content, click the link here.
