Tanner Houck on his 2023 season: ‘I hate being mediocre’
On Friday night, Red Sox skipper Alex Cora missed a challenge to some of his young pitchers. The Red Sox and Cora need Garrett Whitlock, Kutter Crawford, Tanner Houck and Brayan Bello to take a step forward in 2024.
“At the end of the day, the Whitlocks, the Crawfords, the Houcks, the Bellos, they have to take a step forward,” the Cora said at Winter Weekend. “Regardless of if you sign the best pitcher in the world, they need to take a step forward.”
Tanner Houck is ready to accept his manager’s challenge and move forward as a starter next season.
“Some people probably shy away from it,” he told the Herald on Saturday, in response to hearing what his manager said. “But I love it. That’s the competitor in me. I want to win.”
“The past few years have, I mean, I’ll just say they sucked,” Houck said.
The last two seasons haven’t gone to plan for Houck. His 2022 season ended with season-ending surgery. Last season, Houck was struck in the face by a line-drive comebacker in June against the Yankees. The line drive caused a facial fracture and Houck would require surgery and missed two months.
Overall, Houck finished the reason with a 6-10 record with a 5.01 ERA and 1.368 WHIP in 21 starts while racking up 99 strikeouts in 106 innings.
Houck told reporters that he wasn’t satisfied with his production last season despite his mid-season injury.
“I hate losing. I hate being mediocre. And I feel like, from my standpoint, I’ve been very average,” Houck told the Boston Herald’s Gabrielle Starr. “I know that my potential is a lot higher. I know I can do better. I’ve talked the talk and I have to do the walk now.”
Houck wants to earn a spot in the Red Sox rotation. He will need to earn that during spring training that is set to begin next month.
“I want to start, I love starting,” he said. “I know last year was up and down a little bit for me, but at the same point, I feel really confident this year, with the offseason I had.”
The Red Sox still view Houck as a starter, but also could rely on the right to contribute out of the bullpen, similar to Josh Winckowski’s role last season.
Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow told reporters in Arizona at the GM Meetings that he plans on building Houck as a starter this offseason. That could change on the potential acquisitions to address the flawed rotation.
The Red Sox are expected to enter spring training with Bello, Whitlock, Lucas Giolito, Crawford and Nick Pivetta has potential starters.
“I’m thinking giving them every chance to get built out as starting pitchers makes a ton of sense,” said Breslow. “I think as we start to put into place the pitching infrastructure that we’re working hard to put in place, there will be opportunities to maybe tweak around the margins: pitch usage, pitch shapes, attack plans that can maybe get more mileage out of those guys. I also think just having them healthy and having healthy offseasons and anticipating healthy seasons gives us a better look at what they are capable of doing. So I’m not sure that decision gets made in spring training. My hope is they come in built up, they are viable rotation options and the team needs and how we best kind of put the winning team on the field dictates ultimately (their roles).”
Houck has been stronger out of the bullpen with a 2.68 ERA in 33 career relief outings (53 2/3 innings). He owns a 4.17 ERA over 41 career starts, starting this season due to injuries to the rotation.
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