On Friday night, Steven Wright finally got his first win of the 2016 campaign. Despite a 1-2 record to show for his first three starts of the season, he has started off the 2016 season in impressive form.

On March 30^th, the Red Sox made the official announcement that Steven Wright was to be named the fifth starter in the rotation. However, 17 games and three starts later, Wright has surprisingly become our most reliable pitcher. He has been the most consistent while throwing the most inconsistent pitch in baseball, the knuckleball.

Here is Wright’s current stat line for his past three starts:

19.1 IP, 3 ER, 17 K’s, 1.40 ERA, 1.241 WHIP, with a 7.9 K/9

He may be the fifth starter in the rotation, but if you perform, you deserve the spot no matter what. The closest pitcher to matching what he has done in terms of ERA is Rick Porcello who possesses a 4.66 ERA.

The other ERAs look like this: Buchholz has a 5.74 ERA, Price has a 7.06 ERA and Kelly has a 9.36 ERA although he is now out with an injury.

Although it has only been three starts, he has shown us that he very much belongs in the rotation. He has quietly been proving that he deserves to be in the starting five since last year. Dating back to the beginning of last season, he has a 3.52 ERA in 92 innings, allowing two or fewer runs in each of his last seven starts going all the way back to July 25, 2015, which gives him a 2.06 ERA during the stretch.

I don’t care if he is fifth in the rotation. I don’t care that he is a knuckleball pitcher and can blow up at any time due to the inconsistencies that come with the pitch. For now, Wright is here to stay and I am excited to see how the rest of his season is going to pan out.