Same Old Same Old

Dylan Cease reverted to form in the Bronx yesterday afternoon. The young righthander barreled through the Yankees for three innings, then fell apart in the fourth. He staggered into the fifth before getting pulled and being charged with five earned runs in a 7-0 New York win. Cease also threw two wild pitches, but with Yasmani Grandal behind the plate, maybe not. Grandal leads the majors right now with five passed balls to go with those three catcher’s interference errors, so we’re not exactly talking Golden Glove backstop here. In fact, Grandal is making Zack Collins look good. Oh, Collins can’t hit his weight; if only the 220-pound left-handed hitter could. But even hitting .190 with a 36 percent strikeout rate looks better than Grandal’s .133 BA and percent strikeout rate. And he puts up those numbers while switch-hitting. Defensively, Collins has a 2.77 catcher’s ERA as opposed to 3.69 for Grandal. That’s nearly a full run, folks. How long until none of the Sox starters want to throw to Captain Clank? This is only going to get worse. I can think of three catchers I’d rather have. Remember James McCann? How about Omar Narvaez? Or Kevan Smith, who was just picked up by the Braves? We had all those guys, and now we have Yasmani Grandal. Not your best moment, Rick Hahn.