Red Sox reliever Carson Smith will be placed on the disabled list after an MRI revealed that he has suffered a strain of his flexor mass muscle, as Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald tweets. Smith is expected to pitch this year, but there is currently no timetable for his potential return.
Smith, 26, exited Monday’s game after experiencing forearm tightness just five pitches into his outing. As it turns out, that tightness was foreshadowing for a more serious issue. Fortunately, however, the pain was not the result of damage to the ulnar collateral ligament, which could have necessitated Tommy John surgery. Late last month, MLBTR contributor Bradley Woodrum delved deep into the causes of and warning signs for Tommy John surgery. In his research, Woodrum found that Smith was among the players with a slightly elevated risk of requiring TJ.
The Red Sox acquired Smith this offseason along with southpaw Roenis Elias when they traded Wade Miley and Jonathan Aro to Seattle. Smith was being counted upon for a significant late-inning role, so the Red Sox are obviously less-than-thrilled about today’s news. As Jeff outlined on Monday, there’s still plenty of late-inning depth for Boston, starting with closer Craig Kimbrel plus veterans Koji Uehara and Junichi Tazawa.
Last year marked Smith’s first full season in the majors. He took the opportunity and ran with it, recording a 2.31 ERA with 11.8 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 across 70 innings.
Phew, it’s just the flexor mass muscle. Not so bad, much better than his elbow
WOW That was a close one. Now they can still reserve his spot for the HOF. My guess is the he is first ballot next year right?
It’s getting old now, Mark
Thank you for your input.
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Mark, I love it when you opine about my Sox = )
You sox? Now you sounding like him LOL
Flexor strains are commonly linked to the UCL; see Joel Hanrahan for a nice reference on that.
Let me guess, to replace Smith your Sox are going to trade Holt for Aroldis Chapman?
For Holt? 4 months of Chapman is worth at least King Felix and 20M.
Holt was an All Star for christ’s sake!
(Pretty pitiful that he was the only player on the Sox good enough to be their token player last year)
Just a minor blip in the radar in Smith’s HOF career. I would be shocked if he didn’t produce 2x the WAR of Mariano Rivera in his career.
My sox will be just fine.
At least it’s not Kimbrel or Price and at least they’re not ignoring it.
Sorry, I don’t follow. What makes you think a team or teams would ignore this?
I don’t actually think any team would do that. I think I’m just happier that they seem to be treating him kid gloves and making sure he’s 100% rather than trying to wait and see if he’s available by opening day.
The Sox basically ignored the severity of E-Rod’s knee injury for a couple weeks.
The Sox downplayed the severity of ERod’s knee injury for a couple of weeks, so that’s basically ignoring it.
You can say that again
Too funny to pass by…
They did what? Just where did you get this 100% false info from? The fly by night press?
Maybe read WEEI, Boston Globe Sports, even the Boston Herald and would have noticed the Sox were resting him at the start, then having ERod doing nothing but tossing from the sidelines later on.
The Sox medical staff checked him out and found out the cause of the problem early on, there was -0- miscommunication anywhere, unless as said earlier? you were laying trust in some fly by night press biosphere…
Lol sorry for the double post, first one didn’t show so I assumed an error occurred. As for what I said, there was a lot of miscommunication early on, with the Sox going from just some ‘swelling’ and a couple days rest to a subluxation, only to top it off with a dislocation and DL stint. They do have a tendency to downplay injuries IMO, Buchholz being a perfect example.
Why does every premium reliever we get explode upon impact?
Everyone from Hanrahan, Mujica, Bailey, Melancon, to even Byung Hyung Kim :(
Wow that really is a weird track record…please don’t break Kimbrel, I wanna see what his career stats are like if he stays elite
You now have the Dave Dombrowski curse. Any player acquired to fill a bullpen need will implode, one way or another. Just ask the Tigers. Carson is following the track of Joel Zumaya. Kimbrel will probably become Joe Nathan, or Jose Valverde. Just saying don’t be surprised by it.
Joe Nathan and Jose valverde where in their mid to late 30’s. Kimbrel and smith are in their mid to late 20’s big difference.
We already have a reliever curse, much worse then Dombrowski’s tiger career. Young relievers arms blowing up as soon as they get close to Fenway.
Craig Kimbrel alone will not resurrect the RedSox bullpen. Either Carson Smith has to return strong or someone else has to step forward ( Matt Barnes?)
I’m less concerned with our bullpen and more focused on our rotation after Price. Let’s face it, no one has really jumped out and made anything of the opportunity Erod’s injury presented.
You can’t count on Clay, he’ll be on the DL by June, Porcello has looked awful, Wright mediocre, Owens concerning, and Elias meh. The only one who has shown anything is Kelly, who doesn’t exactly have a track record of consistency…
Here is to hoping DD has a trade up his sleeve. Maybe a bad contract swap like Castillo and a minor leaguer for Shields, something anything we could get projectable performance from.
I really wonder if this is why he was given up basically for so little by Seatle. I’m sure Boaton read all the reports and I really hope he can avoid missing a whole year due to TJ surgery. If he is unfortunate enough to require the surgery I hope he is able to come back just as strong . I always thought Carson Smith was destined to be a superstar reliever. I traded for him on my most recent MLB the Show team lol and he developed into a 98 rating and my most relied upon reliever to get out of jams LOL
The bad part about this is they will simply rehab him for the next 4 months and then they or we may find out he will still need to go under the knife. If that happens then the Sox are with out him for this year and next year. 2 years of wasted service time so YES they are hoping for sure this is not serious.
I believe that was more of a case of a new GM, Jerry Dipoto, having his own roster philosophy.
People have been speculating that he would have arm problems due to his pitching motion for years. Seattle hardly gave him up for nothing, Miley at 3/19 is a better pitcher than Happ at 3/36 so they got at least 17 M in excess value over a similar free agent starter.