Why Red Sox manager Chad Tracy isn’t as surprised as others with rookie starter’s performance

CHICAGO — At the beginning of this season, the Red Sox had a Cy Young award finalist from a year ago, two newly acquired veteran with long, successful careers, an emerging starter with 25 wins the previous two years and a two highly-regarded prospects.

No one could have anticipated that, by midseason, a rookie lefty who had thrown fewer than 40 innings above Double A would be pitching as well or better than any of them.

And yet, here’s Jake Bennett, who won his third straight start Wednesday night and sports a tidy 2.64 ERA as the All-Star break approaches.

Over his last five starts, Bennett sports a 1.08 ERA. In two of those starts, he hasn’t allowed a run.

Improbably, he’s making it look easy, never more so than Wednesday night when he tossed seven shutout innings with precision, allowing just four hits in a 5-0 Red Sox win over Chicago.

“Same as what he usually does — he just went out there and ho-hum pounded the strike zone," said interim manager Chad Tracy of Bennett. “He was just really good. He just pounded the strike zone. Worked ahead in the count, got strike one, stayed in the count, Off-speed for swing and miss. It was just a really, really good outing.

“It’s impressive because of how many strikes he throws and he’s still able to generate swing and miss and stay in the zone to keep the counts manageable. He throws a ton of strikes. Then he just does his thing and walks off the field and gets ready for the next inning. He’s been awesome (and this was) another good one.”

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If anyone was prepared for what Bennett has accomplished, it was Tracy, who saw him in spring training, then had him at Worcester for the first month before Tracy took over in Boston.

“He’s throwing the same way he did down there,” said Tracy. “The starts he had down there, he has like a 0.7 ERA and threw a ton of strikes. He was excellent down there, so what you’re seeing was the same thing we saw. He’s just doing it now at the big league level.”

Bennett barely broke a sweat and retired 10 of the last 11 hitters he faced. He seemed plenty able to keep going, but was removed after seven innings and just 81 pitches. But after stretching him out to 92 last time in Anaheim and mindful of the jump in workload he’s taking on, the Sox erred on the side of caution.

“It’s a huge confidence boost to know that my stuff plays at this level,” said Bennett, “and I keep trying to build off of it.”

Bennett isn’t varying his approach from start to start. Each time, his repertoire centers around four-seam fastballs at the top of the strike zone, sinkers at the bottom, and a changeup as his main off-speed weapon.

Red Sox starters in general are on quite a roll. Over the last 12 games, the staff has pitched to 2.97 ERA over that span.

The quality starts are contagious throughout the rotation and it may well be that the 24-year-old rookie is throwing the best of them all.

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