Red Sox fire pitching coach Dave Bush

The Red Sox are firing pitching coach Dave Bush and will not retain third base coach Carlos Febles, reports Alex Speier of the Boston Globe. The club has yet to confirm the news.

Bush has led the Boston pitching staff for four seasons. The Sox hired the former big league right-hander in October 2019. He held the role during Ron Roenicke’s year as interim manager and remained on staff when the Sox re-hired Alex Cora during the 2020-21 offseason.

The Sox have been a below-average run prevention team over the past four seasons. They rank 23rd in ERA during that stretch and finished 21st this year, allowing 4.51 earned runs per nine. That’s not all on the pitching staff. Playing in the AL East has pitted Boston against generally strong offenses. The Sox have also consistently run out a mediocre defensive alignment. Only the Cardinals, Rockies and A’s allowed a higher percentage of batted balls to fall for hits this past season.

From a strikeout and walk perspective, the Red Sox were a middle-of-the-pack group. They ranked 14th with a 23.1% strikeout percentage and 10th in walks, surrendering free passes at an 8.1% clip. Young right-hander Brayan Bello had a reasonably encouraging first full MLB season, although his production dropped markedly in the second half. It was the opposite story for Nick Pivetta, who was dominant late in the season after being bumped from the rotation by mid-May.

Aside from Bello, Boston shuttled through a number of pitchers in the rotation this year. Corey Kluber, James Paxton, Tanner Houck and Chris Sale all dealt with injury issues. That was also true of Garrett Whitlock, who didn’t find the expected level of success upon a move from the bullpen to the rotation. Kutter Crawford also bounced from the relief corps to the starting staff midway through the year. The pitching staff’s flux isn’t necessarily a reflection on Bush’s work — it was always likely to be a high-variance group given Paxton’s and Sale’s injury histories and the inexperience of Whitlock, Houck and Bello as starters — but the Sox will look for a new voice to lead their pitchers moving forward.

Febles has worked in the Boston organization for nearly two decades. He had been on the MLB staff as third base coach since 2018. A former infielder, Febles spent parts of six seasons in the majors with the Royals around the turn of the century.