The Sox rotation has started strong. The top three starters, Mark Buehrle, Gavin Floyd, and John Danks, have all been

solid and even dominant at times. The biggest question mark, fifth starter Bartolo Colon, has pitched extremely well in his few starts this season. The only problem has been fourth starter Jose Contreras, who has been increasingly bad in his three starts this year. I emphasize increasingly because the hope was that Jose, who’s coming off an injury, would gradually improve as the season wore on. This hasn’t been the case.

It’s obvious that Jose isn’t 100% healthy. His fastball has had solid velocity, fluttering around in the low-90s, but the control simply hasn’t been there (as evidenced by his six walks and seven hits in 5 1/3 innings yesterday against Baltimore). His forkball, which is his “out” pitch, has been non-existent. He threw maybe a dozen of them in his first two starts, leading me to believe that he didn’t have command of it yet and was trying to hide it. Well, after yesterday’s start, it’s obvious he wouldn’t recognize his forkball if it had two forms of valid state-issued ID. He threw somewhere around ten forkers last night, and none of them were pretty. They either dove into the dirt (far) in front of home plate or hung up in the zone, kinda like the one Luke Scott pounded in the 5th inning to give the O’s the lead. Add that to a guy who doesn’t defend his position well and has a wind up like Scooby-Doo running in mid-air before taking off at a sprint and that’s a recipe for a bad pitcher.

I give Jose ONE more start to show me SOMETHING. ANYTHING.

If not, I move him into the bullpen or to AAA Charlotte and put starter-turned-reliever Clayton Richard (he of the respectable 4.32 ERA) into the 5th spot. I don’t expect Richard to light the place on fire, but I also don’t think he’ll have a WHIP over two. The Sox might be able to weather this if Colon keeps pitching out-of-his-mind and the offense gets hot, but let’s not take the chance.