We have all been taking shots at Robin Ventura lately and we have good reason to do so. Many moves have been easily first-guessed, let alone second guessed. Looking at the Sox starting pitching performance the last two months however shows a bad trend. The following data was collected from Fangraphs and is current as of 9/13/2012.
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| IP | BB/9 | K/9 | H/9 | BABIP | LOB % | |
| April | 145.0 | 2.73 | 8.38 | 6.58 | 0.239 | 71.9 |
| May | 168.2 | 2.82 | 7.15 | 8.86 | 0.291 | 70.3 |
| June | 175.2 | 2.10 | 7.43 | 8.81 | 0.293 | 78.4 |
| July | 156.1 | 2.71 | 5.70 | 9.79 | 0.299 | 74.7 |
| August | 165.1 | 3.15 | 7.89 | 9.69 | 0.317 | 78.8 |
| September | 55.1 | 4.72 | 10.41 | 8.78 | 0.333 | 74.8 |
The most startling trend from the graph is the steep ascent of the BB/9 rate over the last 7 weeks of the season. In October alone, the BB/9 rate is at least 66% higher than it was for any of the first 4 months of the season. It is easy to attribute this to Liriano and his massive 6.49 BB/9 over the last 30 days but every Sox starter has a higher BB/9 over the last 30 days then his full season total except Gavin Floyd. It is also interesting to note that the BABIP for starters has also increased since August 1. I am not informed enough to know if there is a correlation between BABIP and BB/9, but my instinct says no.
So I ask the question, are the Sox starters fatigued or succumbing to the pressure?
Edit: Added H/9 at request of larry and removed IBB from BB/9. Interesting, the Sox SP IBB issues by month: 0,2,1,1,6,1. 6 IBB in August?
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