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The Red Sox rotation is still in flux
Tuesday’s Say Hey, Baseball includes the problems with the back-end of Boston’s rotation, a military tribute done right, and injuries to the Tigers’ starting five.
Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
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Clay Buchholz has been demoted to the bullpen for the second time in 2016, and it happened in favor of journeyman Sean O’Sullivan. This swap alone isn’t a fair representation of the Red Sox rotation, but it does tell you where the back-end of their starting five currently sit. O’Sullivan is not good, nor is he anything but a pre-All-Star break fill-in, but the Sox would rather that than sit through another short and infuriating Buchholz start.
Boston’s internal options are limited. Aaron Wilkerson is worth putting on the 40-man and giving a few starts to in order to see if he can translate his high-minors dominance into adequate big-league production. Eduardo Rodriguez will eventually be fine, but he has to sort out his mechanics — messed up by a spring training knee injury — before he can be trusted in another game that counts. Henry Owens isn’t pitching well at Triple-A, Joe Kelly lost his starting job twice already this year, Justin Haley just got to Triple-A and might be a reliever in the long run ... that’s how Boston got to O’Sullivan.
The Sox need to make a trade for a stabilizing, back-end arm. They don’t need an ace — one awful start against the Rangers aside, David Price is back to being that guy over the last couple of months. They do need someone who can give their offense a chance, though, and while that shouldn’t be tough — the Sox do lead the majors in both runs and OPS+ — it’s been a chore for them to this point. Some combination of Wilkerson, Rodriguez, and a pitcher they haven’t traded for yet should be a more than serviceable bandage on the rotation, at least, Even with these problems, the Sox are just two games out of the AL East lead and hold the first wild card spot, too. They’ll just have to make some moves if they want things to keep looking that promising.
- Olympic gymnast Simone Biles threw out the first pitch at the Astros’ game, and did so by performing a front flip before throwing it.
- MLB gave Fort Bragg a baseball game on Sunday, and then got the hell out of the way. This is how military tributes should happen in sports.
- Here are the top 17 most memorable moments from the College World Series.
- Democratic baseball would be stupid, but that’s kind of the point of this thought exercise.
- Eduardo Nunez fell down swinging at a 60 mph knuckleball thrown by a position player.
- Jose Reyes is going to be activated by the Mets on Tuesday. It will be the 2016 debut for Reyes, who was arrested last October and then suspended for grabbing his wife by the throat and slamming her into a glass sliding door, causing injury to her neck, wrists, and thigh.
- Jameson Taillon was in the majors thanks to an injury to Pirates’ ace Gerrit Cole, but now Taillon will hit the DL with shoulder fatigue.
- The Indians’ bullpen will start to get a makeover, as both Joba Chamberlain and Tom Gorzelanny were designated for assignment by the AL Central leaders.
- The Tigers have had a pretty good week and have shot back up the standings, but they just lost Jordan Zimmermann to the 15-day DL with a neck strain, and removed Daniel Norris from Monday’s game with a strained oblique.
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