The Red Sox will activate left-hander David Price from the injured list to start against the Angels on Sunday, Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe tweets. Meanwhile, lefty Brian Johnson will finish the year in Boston’s bullpen, according to Abraham.
Price went to the shelf with a cyst in his wrist back on Aug. 8, which came on the heels of a rough few starts. The 34-year-old owned a 3.16 ERA as of July 16, but the number shot to 4.36 in the handful of outings preceding his IL placement. A significant portion of the damage came in Price’s most recent appearance, in which the rival Yankees clobbered him for seven earned runs on nine hits (including a pair of homers) in 2 2/3 innings.
Recent struggles notwithstanding, the Red Sox will be glad to get back Price, who’s in the fourth season of a seven-year, $217MM investment. For the most part, Price has been a decent contributor this season, evidenced by a 3.63 FIP/3.67 xFIP/3.82 SIERA with 10.77 K/9 and 2.65 BB/9 in 105 1/3 innings. And the rest of the Red Sox’s starting staff isn’t in particularly great shape, which helps explain why the defending champions are 5 1/2 games out of a playoff spot. Injured ace Chris Sale is probably done for the year, former Cy Young winner Rick Porcello has been a letdown, and big-money offseason re-signing Nathan Eovaldi has both underperformed and dealt with significant elbow problems.
Thanks in part to the myriad issues in their rotation, the Red Sox have had to give seven starts to Johnson, who hasn’t produced appealing results during an injury- and illness- shortened campaign. The 28-year-old has logged a 5.09 ERA/5.03 FIP with 5.87 K/9 and 4.3 BB/9 out of Boston’s rotation.
Don’t let this distract you from the fact that the Red Sox are 15.5 games back in the AL East.
Funny part is if they somehow climb up and steal a wild card spot, that won’t matter. 1 game or 20 out and you still have to play that stupid one game play-in game. Certainly not expecting a turn around although it would be nice to forget the sting of the 2011 collapse. Winning in 13 and 19 is the ultimate but 2011 to me was worse than 78 and 86 combined (despite those having NY connections).
I agree with you the MLB needs to get rid of this policy where losers get into the playoffs. I mean after all they are 15.5 games back. That is absolutely pitiful. Those are couch surfing in October numbers.
But if losers didn’t get into the playoffs, Boston never could have whipped NY in the playoffs last year. So let’s keep it the way things are.
Shut Price down, too. What’s the point in using up his arm ?