Red Sox closer Joel Hanrahan is overthrowing, manager John Farrell said. Hanrahan had the night off Thursday after throwing 32 pitches and allowing five runs in an 8-5 loss to the Orioles Wednesday night.
BOSTON — Joel Hanrahan won't have a chance at next-day redemption.
The Red Sox closer was unavailable for Thursday night's rubber match against the Orioles at Fenway Park, manager John Farrell said, leaving Andrew Bailey the ninth-inning man if a save situation arises. Farrell also mentioned Koji Uehara, Junichi Tazawa and Andrew Miller as available pitchers, but none would take precedence over Bailey for save.
Farrell and Hanrahan have spoken since Hanrahan allowed a five-run ninth in Wednesday's 8-5 loss, a conversation "more about going forward and he’s our closer," Farrell said. Hanrahan wouldn't have been available even if he hadn't blown the save — the decision was predicated on the 32 pitches thrown.
"I think Joel is well aware of what took place last night," Farrell said. “It points more towards aggressiveness. Any time you overthrow a little bit, you’re going to sacrifice some location for additional velocity. By no means, would we ask Joel to try to throw with less velocity. Prioritizing location is really any pitcher’s goal going in and recognizing that those ninth innings, there’s a lot of adrenaline to harness. He’s had a lot of success at doing that. last night was unfortunately a game that got away from him.”
Hanrahan's fastball's sitting 97 mph this season, according to FanGraphs, and if he kept that average up, it'd match a career-high from 2011. He averaged 95.8 a year ago, so the overthrowing theory has some backing from the numbers. Notable, though, is that 2011 was Hanrahan's best season.
Asked if Hanrahan's trying to muscle up a bit because of the new environment he's in — Fenway Park instead of Pittsburgh — Farrell didn't rule out the possibility.
"Could be, but I still think the ninth inning presents such a unique environment or atmosphere in and of itself, I think as much as coming into Boston, and I don’t want to say that’s the reason for it, but he’s facing hitters he hasn’t seen for quite a while," Farrell said. "And the reason lineups are constructed here vs. that pitcher or pinch hitter showing up late in the game where he’s been on the bench all night, and it’s a little bit of a different animal, the lineups in the American League. And for the short samples that Baltimore has against him, obviously there’s a guy over there that’s had a lot of success against him and that’s Adam Jones (who homered in Monday's 3-1 Sox win) being one, even though he wasn’t in the mix of it last night. They can swing the bat."
Pitching coach Juan Nieves indicated Hanrahan isn't someone who needs fixing, mechanically or otherwise.
“His delivery is his delivery. He’s done it for so many years," Nieves said. "Location is very important. You have great stuff, but you have to hit the mitt a lot of those times. There has to be a purpose with every pitch, and we’re going to talk about it today. To me, location is the most important thing. His stuff is good enough. He throws 99 mph with the great slider. The consistency of that has to be a little better. Big-league hitters feed off poorly located fastballs and poorly located breaking balls. That’s why they get paid a lot of money, that’s why he gets paid a lot of money. Basically, it’s the challenge of seeing the glove and hitting the glove more often than not."
Follow MassLive.com Red Sox beat writer @EvanDrellich on Twitter. He can be reached by email at evan.drellich@masslive.com.