The Red Sox have optioned right-hander Ryan Weber to their alternate training site, as per a team announcement. Recently-acquired righty Dylan Covey has been called up to take Weber’s spot on the MLB roster.
The 2020 season has been a struggle for Weber, who has a 9.90 ERA over three starts and only 10 innings pitched. Weber has allowed five home runs over that brief sample size, as well as nine walks and only three strikeouts. Clearly the Sox had been enough to continue with Weber as a starting pitcher, as strapped as Boston is for arms.
It was due to this pitching shortage that Weber found himself in the rotation in the first place, after working as a reliever for 31 of his 42 Major League appearances prior to this season. Weber had only a 5.04 ERA and 5.7 K/9 through 114 1/3 innings from 2015-19, though his strong ability to generate grounders and limit hard contact gave the Red Sox some hope that he could at least tread water as a regular starter. Weber’s grounder rate is down to only 40% this season, however, and opposing batters are teeing off to the tune of a 54.8% hard-hit ball rate.
Covey might step right into Weber’s rotation spot, though while the 28-year-old righty brings more experience as a starting pitcher, he also has a rather shaky track record. Covey posted a 6.54 ERA, 6.2 K/9, and 1.52 K/BB rate over 250 1/3 innings with the White Sox from 2017-2019, also posting some solid ground-ball rates and exhibiting some problems with the long ball (1.6 HR/9). Over 63 appearances for Chicago, Covey started 45 of those games.
The Red Sox acquired Covey from the Rays just a few days prior to their July opener, and he made one relief appearance for Boston before being sent to the alternate training site. That one outing didn’t go particularly well, as Covey gave up two earned runs over two innings in Boston’s 7-2 loss to the Orioles on July 25.
Gary Bell is next.
I am ?
The Sox put Weber in an unreasonable position – he was thoroughly and obviously out-matched. Been a long time since I’ve seen Sox pitching this under qualified.
I don’t know if I would quite say that. Any person in his right mind would cut off his left nut for an opportunity like that. I wouldn’t call it unreasonable I would call it the opportunity a man lives his entire life for.
Why can’t you both be right? He definitely wasn’t ready yet if the team was willing to put a uniform on my 58 year old body, I’d be in uniform tonight.
Good point.
You really think I’m comparing Weber to the average fan, or am I making a point about Boston not being properly prepared for this season? It is unreasonable to run Weber out every five days given his skill set – it demonstrates the Red Sox blatant indifference to 2020. Unreasonable.
LOL what does the average fan have to do with the Boston Red Sox roster??
LOL with capital letters.
I’m talking about a guy who’s a major league pitcher or on the verge of being so, floating around the minors, called up here sent back there. That’s what I’m talking about.
Average fan LOL, you’re hilarious.
I suppose your broad use of “any person” and “a man” hold more specific fiction than I anticipated. Capital letters, Gary? Quite a night.
Only in your Fantasy brain are the Red Sox entertaining roster spots to the General Public lol (small letters.., getting late, time to wind down.)
That’s all you got?
That’s all you’re worth
OMG. Gary, please stop getting the last word in. I’ve been there but in this case, it’s just not worth it.
Got you looie. Sorry about that. But it was so automatic, he stepped right into it on the last one. My bad I’m not usually like that. Thank you for the tap on the shoulder that I’m getting out of line. Absolutely true.
No problem. You’ll return the favor when I’m in that kind of a moment.
As a White Sox fan, Covey is just plain horrible…
The Red Sox are looking for lightning in a bottle. They’re going to throw out guys with career era north of 5 and see if something can happen and just try to survive the season.
What I’m hoping for is an exciting trade deadline and dump some of these guys like Barnes and get something back. A few of their position players are pretty valuable right now like Pilar Etc maybe Jackie Bradley. It’s been a long time as a Red Sox fan since we’ve been sellers at the deadline. Now is the time to trade a vet for a couple young guys.
The red sox are looking for this joke of a season to end. It will soon.
keep saying it and maybe, just maybe, you’ll be right and we’ll give you a big gold star
I can add it to the other gold star you gave me two and a half years ago when I said Pedroia would not play another season as the regular 2nd baseman.
I agree with your original post Gary. The team is already playing for next year and why not? No fans to fill Fenway and right now those at home are starved and will continue to watch until the team is mathematically eliminated.
Well, the RED Sox plan, might be the same plan as the WHITE Sox had For Covey. That is, to Intentionally lose games for them.
And Weber wasn’t?
Holding onto Weber would have been obvious tanking the season. But if you run a guy out there for three starts and dump him when you would normally dump him after a start and a half like that, then it’s not so obvious. I wonder who the next guy will be after Covey’s 3 starts ?
Henry Owens… could they do worse?
He had a few good moments for the Sox, enough to get him another chance with the Rays and now a second chance with Boston. I wish him well.
Bout time … he was part of the problem last year, I couldn’t figure out how he was part of the solution this year.
I have never in my life wanted a red sox season to end faster than this one, this team is painful to watch, granted ive only watched the Yankees series so far and that was to pretty much see how good they are, and i watch snippets and an inning here and their( and im someone thats watched every game and inning for the last 19 years) i have NEVER EVER see a staff this bad, when you see our ‘pitchers’ actually look at the dugout as to say ‘get me out of here’ you know we have a problem and i HATE roenicke, while hes only their to kill time and change pitchers, his overly optimistic take everynight saying ‘ our guys fought’ is annoying, NO RON they didnt fight, thats why they lost 3-4 or 5-0, and i get it, he was given nothing and thats what hes working with, but still, atleast francona would say ‘ our pitching is awful and its not getting better’ then when you see the team itself completely checkout after 6 innings everynight, its almost like they are asking how can we loose this game? sad really, makes you appreciate how good this team was years back, i personally think the 2007 team was still the best they ever had in terms of raw talent rookies and pitching, I NEVER see them being that collected and whole again, i honestly wouldnt be surprised if the team was sold, bring in a younger owner or owner(s) and just get rid of everybody from the ground up( think cubs 2011-2015 that were AWFUL, but atleast had a vision.
This team is playing with Zero desire to win. None! No manager worth anything, Pitching staff is a bad joke, Hitting coach must be on vacation. I’d at least bring up some prospects up and let them have a shot. Can’t do any worse!
The team positively sucks and the GM Bloom is a complete low payroll B team baseball cheap GM. There are a lot of dry years coming with this guy! All he does is pick up throwaways from other teams like Dan Duquette did. This is turning into a real Rube Goldberg cheaply run operation
Covey is awful and another cheap Bloom throwaway pickup. Every night it is plug another cheap payroll starter in to pitch. Bloom traded away our most talented player and will always be remembered for that one. I cannot wait for this season to end. It’s like it was in the late 70s and early 80s. Instead of trading for help, it was bring up another one from Pawtucket.
….so the Red Sox are supposed to throw away good prospects for a season that probably won’t even get finished…..really? I would rather reset, hopefully, and sped money on improving the team over the winter when they have money to spend. 2020 has been a throw away in almost every aspect.
Obviously not a big picture guy.
I can see this guy as a neighbor. Big house, fancy car in the driveway, boat and trailer beside the house with huge RV to pull it. 0 savings.