The Boston Red Sox entered the season with extremely low expectations due to the pure lack of talent on the roster, but through their first 29 games, the team has put together a 16-13 record.
A lot of Boston's success early in their 2024 campaign has stemmed from impressive performances from their starters, including Tanner Houck, who now has a 1.60 ERA and a 0.92 WHIP in his six starts after tossing 6 2/3 innings of four-hit, one-run, nine-strikeout ball against the Chicago Cubs on Sunday.
Houck looks like the pitcher the Red Sox dreamed he could be when they took him in the first round of the 2017 draft, and some believe he has the potential to be acknowledged as the best pitcher in the league.
“What’s his ceiling? Frickin’ Cy Young. Seriously,” Whitlock told MassLive's Chris Cotillo. "There’s a reason the Red Sox took him in the first round. There’s a reason he was Team USA. There’s a reason he was All-(SEC) or whatever.
“He’s an ace. There’s no way around it. When he’s pitching like this, guys can see it. When he’s throwing like that and going six or seven innings every time out, that’s a natural-born ace. The way his stuff moves and the uncomfortable at-bats, it would not surprise me at all if he had a Cy Young or two by the time his career’s over.”
Houck was only really in Boston's starting rotation at the beginning of the year because of injuries, but he looks like the true ace of the staff now. And, while it may have felt farfetched to consider him a Cy Young candidate before the season began, the notion feels like a realistic possibility after six starts.
