{"id":117388,"date":"2026-03-31T15:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T19:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=117388"},"modified":"2026-03-31T15:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T19:12:14","slug":"ranger-suarez-numbers-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/03\/31\/ranger-suarez-numbers-fans\/","title":{"rendered":"Ranger Suarez By The Numbers: Should Fans Worry After Debut?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over the course of the offseason, one of the Red Sox\u2019s main priorities was improving their pitching rotation. As the saying goes, pitching wins championships. So, they <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/03\/25\/2026-boston-red-sox-preview\/\" target=\"_self\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">spent time upgrading<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, getting names such as <\/span><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/grayso01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sonny Gray<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/o\/oviedjo01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Johan Oviedo<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The only multi-year free agent deal given out by GM Craig Breslow was also to a pitcher. Former Philadelphia Phillies star <\/span><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/suarera01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ranger Suarez<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> signed a five-year, $ 130 million <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/01\/14\/breaking-ranger-suarez-signs-with-the-boston-red-sox\/\" target=\"_self\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">deal in January.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> After a rough WBC stint with Venezuela, he made his Red Sox debut against the Astros on Monday. Here\u2019s how it went, by the numbers:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Ranger Suarez By The Numbers: Should Fans Worry After Debut?<\/h2>\n<h3><b>17.55\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The average number of pitches per inning it took Suarez to get through. Seeing as he only got one out in the fifth inning, it\u2019s more of a decimal than a whole number. When compared to the red of the Red Sox starters so far, it surprisingly ranks 2nd-lowest per inning (Garrett Crochet had around 13 per inning on Opening Day). This, however, may say more about the disappointing start for the rotation than Suarez having a good outing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>87.9\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The average velocity of his cutter, the most thrown pitch from his outing. Its speed is <\/span><a  href=\"https:\/\/baseballsavant.mlb.com\/savant-player\/ranger-suarez-624133?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">slightly faster<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> than his 2025 cutter, which was clocked at 86.4. He threw the cutter a total of 24 times on Monday, and the results went like this:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Seven balls\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Seven strikes\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Seven outs (one double play)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Three hits (two home runs)\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He threw a mix of five pitches throughout, but the cutter was his most often used. However, his curve was his most successful. It was only thrown nine times, and not once did anyone hit it; his curve had a 75% whiff rate. At 74 MPH, the slow speed fooled some batters, striking out two with that pitch.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>.368\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/splits\/_\/id\/39817\/ranger-suarez\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Houston\u2019s batting average against Suarez<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> last night. It may look bad on the surface, but aside from the two home runs (which unfortunately is what matters), there were no other extra-base hits. It was Oviedo who let up the doubles. For Suarez, it was the five singles that killed him, most of which came in the first inning.\u00a0 He did hold batters to a .256 average over the course of last season, so this may be a one-off, and he gets better, but given his struggles in the WBC, there is some cause for concern.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Should Fans Be Worried?\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With the good and bad that happened with his start against Houston, and given the recent disappointment in the Classic, there\u2019s one question. Should fans be worried about this signing and debut? And the short answer is no. But there should be some caution. During the 2025 season, he started rough, letting up seven runs in less than four innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks in his season debut in May. He then followed that up with seven innings of shutout ball, in addition to a 1.30 ERA in June.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The excuse for the rough start was that he suffered a back injury in March of 2025, so he was coming off it. Suarez wasn\u2019t coming off a major injury going into Spring Training or the WBC. So this start could be a fluke, and he could be dominant the next time around. But <\/span><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=suarez000ran\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">given his 11.57 ERA<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in 4.2 innings in the tournament, there should be at least a little caution, especially given the value of the contract. Whether or not he bounces back will likely be seen against the Padres this weekend.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credits: <span>Troy Taormina-Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the course of the offseason, one of the Red Sox\u2019s main priorities was improving their pitching rotation. As the saying goes, pitching wins championships. So, they spent time upgrading, getting names such as Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo. The only multi-year free agent deal given out by GM Craig Breslow was also to a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5767,"featured_media":117415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1071],"tags":[3009],"class_list":["post-117388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-redsox","category-mlb","tag-ranger-suarez"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5767"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117388"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117418,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117388\/revisions\/117418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}