Just to add a little onto the starting pitching order discussion, here are some season stats. Hopefully the Red Sox have far more sophisticated analytics than this.
Houston vs. LHP (wOBA/wRC+): Home: .332/115 | Away: .344/119
Houston vs RHP (wOBA/wRC+): Home: .341/121 | Away: .331/110
Chicago vs. LHP (wOBA/wRC+): Home: .330/111 | Away: .339/115
Chicago vs RHP (wOBA/wRC+): Home: .346/121 | Away: .310/95
ERod Home (ERA/FIP/WHIP/wOBA): 5.95/3.25/1.44/.346
ERod Away (ERA/FIP/WHIP/wOBA): 3.95/3.37/1.36/.320
Eovaldi Home (ERA/FIP/WHIP/wOBA): 3.47/2.43/1.12/.278
Eovaldi Away (ERA/FIP/WHIP/wOBA): 4.21/3.39/1.3/.331
Houck Home (ERA/FIP/WHIP/wOBA): 3.32/1.8/1.18/.286
Houck Away (ERA/FIP/WHIP/wOBA): 3.77/3.52/1.06/.253
Pivetta Home (ERA/FIP/WHIP/wOBA): 5.4/5.26/1.45/.357
Pivetta Away (ERA/FIP/WHIP/wOBA): 3.75/3.4/1.18/.277
I didn't look at Sale's numbers as I figured he wouldn't have enough sample size for meaningful splits.
Some bullet points:
- Both Houston and Chicago are better against LHP away
- Both Houston and Chicago are better against RHP at home, with a very pronounced split for Chicago here
- ERod has gotten much better results away than at home, although his peripherals are similar. He's better on TTO at home, but also gives up worse outcomes on balls in play.
- Eovaldi is clearly a much better pitcher at home than away. He's fine to good on the road but excellent at home, and it shows in every metric.
- Houck is a bit of the opposite of ERod. He gets better results at home, but his TTO are better on the road at the cost of giving up much worse outcomes on balls in play.
- Pivetta is like two different pitchers. He's awful at home and very good on the road, and it shows in every metric.
Not having HFA looks to be a really big deal in this series, as things would line up MUCH better if we had it. If we had HFA pitching Eovaldi in game 1 would be a no brainer as it plays into both the opponent's splits and Evo's splits. As it is, it looks like it might actually be better to pitch him in game 3. But then you risk only throwing your best pitcher once in the series.
We'd naturally want to slot Pivetta into game 4 if he's going to start at all, but starting Pivetta at home seems like a terrible idea as his splits are extreme. Maybe against Chicago this would be fine as they are so much worse against RHP on the road?
Starting ERod in game 1 or 2 seems reasonable as it plays into both his splits and the opponent's splits.
Houck is pretty neutral, with a bit of an advantage to home given opponent splits (particularly against Chicago).
If the team thinks that Sale has a good chance of having enough stuff to compete, an interesting idea might be to start him in Game 1 on a quick hook with Pivetta backing him up. If things go well then you probably don't use Pivetta. If they go poorly, Pivetta at least is playing into his vastly superior road splits (albeit also running against opponent splits).
Then you go with E-Rod in game 2 and possibly game 6 (normal rest), allowing him both starts on the road playing into both his splits and opponent splits.
Game 3 you have Eovaldi at home, playing into both his splits and opponents splits and giving the best chance against McCullers. If it goes to game 7 we've got our best pitcher on normal rest.
Game 4 would be Houck, again playing into both his splits and opponent splits.
Game 5 is rough though. If Sale is OK then all is well, but otherwise you are looking at Pivetta starting at home. Barf.
The other approach that I could imagine making sense would be to start Evo, ERod, Houck or Sale, Sale or Houck in that order. The upside of that is that we are more likely to see Evo twice, and we have him at home in game 5. The downside is that Houck and Sale are the two pitchers that are most likely to need to be backed up by Pivetta, and both will be starting at home where we really don't want to see Pivetta pitching.