Nieves out, but Cherington sticking with rotation

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article_body => "BOSTON - The Red Sox made their first major move of the season when it comes to their struggling pitching staff - but the players remain the same. Pitching coach Juan Nieves has been relieved of his duties, the team announced on Thursday. Nieves, who joined the organization as a pitching coach prior to the 2013 season, coached a staff that won the World Series in 2013. That year, the staff posted a 3.79 ERA, the lowest mark for the club since 2002 (3.75 ERA). Boston\u2019s pitchers also set a single-season franchise record with 1,294 strikeouts in 2013. But that staff, aside from the ghost of Clay Buchholz, is no longer around in Boston, replaced by a staff that has struggled from the very start. As it stands, Boston's pitchers ranks 29th in the Majors in ERA (4.86) and 25th in WHIP (1.39). The rotation's ERA is also ranked 29th in the Majors in ERA (5.54). For those reasons, something had to be done. \"First of all I want to thank Juan for everything did for the Red Sox,\" Red Sox GM Ben Cherington said in a conference call on Thursday. \"Many of you probably got to know him over time. He's a terrific guy and a quality coach. He was obviously a part of the huge success two years ago. \"We've been in the process of examining our overall pitching performance. I think as everyone knows there's a lot that goes into pitching performance, starting with the pitchers themselves. There's a lot of different factors that come into play when looking at why things are happening well or not well. The performance that we've had to date, we've been looking at all of those things. While we're confident that we've added many of the pieces in place to improve and that we will see improvement, John and I simply got to the point where we felt in order to continue to push forward and make improvement we needed to make a change and have a different voice in that particular position.\" There was no specific event that precipitated the firing Nieves. Cherington said he felt it was just that time. There is no replacement starting pitcher named yet, so Farrell and the rest of the coaches will carry the load until then. It was an \"extremely\" difficult discussion that Farrell had to have with Nieves. \"He's a caring person,\" Farrell said of Nieves. \"Anytime you have to make a change on someone that you fire, I take responsibility as well. That is not unnoticed in this situation. This wasn't easy.\" But while Nieves had success getting through to past rotations, he wasn't able to with this newly-assembled one. \"Whether or not that same connection was made with the current [rotation] to bring about the consistency of performance,\" Farrell said, \"I think as it's been stated, there's a number of things that go into this, but yet the ability to maintain the consistency or affect change when needed or adjustments that are required that's typical with any pitcher, that wasn't the same as we saw two years ago.\" Earlier this John Farrell said it would take anywhere from six to eight turns through the rotation to really see what this pitching staff is made out of. We're now in the middle of turn six, and with the staff still near the bottom of the league in terms of production, you have to wonder if more moves will be on the way sooner than later. But Cherington seems willing to stick it out a bit longer with the current rotation. \"We believe in the guys who are on this team and we believe that we are going to start to play better and that will come brick by brick,\" Cherington said. \"I think we've seen even in the last few days a lot of good things from the pitching staff. Over the course of the season, adjustments are made. I'm sure over the course of our season, the rest of our season, there will be a time where some adjustments may be made. But right now we're behind the guys that we have. We believe there's reason to feel good what they can do going forward and continue particularly with the rotation, we fully expect that those guys will continue to take their turn and try to build on what they've done.\" If Cherington does have plans to keep the majority of this rotation together, he'll have to consider that when choosing his next pitching coach. To Cherington, it doesn't matter if the next coach is from within the organization or outside of it. \"Every person is going to have different attributes, different strengths,\" Cherington said. \"You got to look at all those things and try to determine who the right fit is in the context of who are pitchers are, the environment, the rest of the staff, etc. So there's no one particular attribute that would rule the day. We have to look at the overall picture.\"<\/p>\n"
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Red Sox

BOSTON - The Red Sox made their first major move of the season when it comes to their struggling pitching staff - but the players remain the same.

Pitching coach Juan Nieves has been relieved of his duties, the team announced on Thursday.

Nieves, who joined the organization as a pitching coach prior to the 2013 season, coached a staff that won the World Series in 2013. That year, the staff posted a 3.79 ERA, the lowest mark for the club since 2002 (3.75 ERA). Boston’s pitchers also set a single-season franchise record with 1,294 strikeouts in 2013.

But that staff, aside from the ghost of Clay Buchholz, is no longer around in Boston, replaced by a staff that has struggled from the very start.

As it stands, Boston's pitchers ranks 29th in the Majors in ERA (4.86) and 25th in WHIP (1.39). The rotation's ERA is also ranked 29th in the Majors in ERA (5.54).

For those reasons, something had to be done.

"First of all I want to thank Juan for everything did for the Red Sox," Red Sox GM Ben Cherington said in a conference call on Thursday. "Many of you probably got to know him over time. He's a terrific guy and a quality coach. He was obviously a part of the huge success two years ago.

"We've been in the process of examining our overall pitching performance. I think as everyone knows there's a lot that goes into pitching performance, starting with the pitchers themselves. There's a lot of different factors that come into play when looking at why things are happening well or not well. The performance that we've had to date, we've been looking at all of those things. While we're confident that we've added many of the pieces in place to improve and that we will see improvement, John and I simply got to the point where we felt in order to continue to push forward and make improvement we needed to make a change and have a different voice in that particular position."

There was no specific event that precipitated the firing Nieves. Cherington said he felt it was just that time. There is no replacement starting pitcher named yet, so Farrell and the rest of the coaches will carry the load until then. It was an "extremely" difficult discussion that Farrell had to have with Nieves.

"He's a caring person," Farrell said of Nieves. "Anytime you have to make a change on someone that you fire, I take responsibility as well. That is not unnoticed in this situation. This wasn't easy."

But while Nieves had success getting through to past rotations, he wasn't able to with this newly-assembled one.

"Whether or not that same connection was made with the current [rotation] to bring about the consistency of performance," Farrell said, "I think as it's been stated, there's a number of things that go into this, but yet the ability to maintain the consistency or affect change when needed or adjustments that are required that's typical with any pitcher, that wasn't the same as we saw two years ago."

Earlier this John Farrell said it would take anywhere from six to eight turns through the rotation to really see what this pitching staff is made out of. We're now in the middle of turn six, and with the staff still near the bottom of the league in terms of production, you have to wonder if more moves will be on the way sooner than later. But Cherington seems willing to stick it out a bit longer with the current rotation.

"We believe in the guys who are on this team and we believe that we are going to start to play better and that will come brick by brick," Cherington said. "I think we've seen even in the last few days a lot of good things from the pitching staff. Over the course of the season, adjustments are made. I'm sure over the course of our season, the rest of our season, there will be a time where some adjustments may be made. But right now we're behind the guys that we have. We believe there's reason to feel good what they can do going forward and continue particularly with the rotation, we fully expect that those guys will continue to take their turn and try to build on what they've done."

If Cherington does have plans to keep the majority of this rotation together, he'll have to consider that when choosing his next pitching coach. To Cherington, it doesn't matter if the next coach is from within the organization or outside of it.

"Every person is going to have different attributes, different strengths," Cherington said. "You got to look at all those things and try to determine who the right fit is in the context of who are pitchers are, the environment, the rest of the staff, etc. So there's no one particular attribute that would rule the day. We have to look at the overall picture."