Red Sox’s slow start comes back to one thing: Starting pitching

9:57 PM ET

HOUSTON — By now, 17 games into the season, it goes beyond merely combining for the highest ERA of any rotation in the American League, although that 5.38 ERA is perfectly ugly on its own.

No, the Boston Red Sox starting pitchers are so bad that they’re infecting the rest of the team.

Clay Buchholz threw the latest dud here Saturday, allowing five runs in 5⅔ innings of an 8-3 loss to the Houston Astros. And by comparison, it actually wasn’t bad. He made one horrendous pitch, a mislocated two-seam fastball to Colby Rasmus, who hit it for a grand slam after flailing at back-to-back curveballs. Beyond that, Buchholz pitched relatively well, at least by 2016 Red Sox standards.

But Buchholz nevertheless failed to complete seven innings for the fourth time in as many starts. Joe Kelly couldn’t do it in three starts before injuring his right shoulder. Rick Porcello has done it once in his three starts. Even ace lefty David Price, who likes to remind everyone of his goal “to get 21 outs every five days,” has done that only once in four starts.

That has left the relievers to cover 60⅔ innings, second-most of any bullpen in the AL behind only Oakland. And with the offense scoring enough runs to make most games close (10 of the first 14 games were decided by three runs or fewer) and valued setup man Carson Smith on the disabled list with a strained right forearm, manager John Farrell had to overuse Junichi Tazawa and Koji Uehara in the season’s first two weeks.

The past week has been all about playing …

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