The Red Sox announced that right-hander Garrett Richards has suffered a left hamstring strain and been removed from the Division Series roster. Matt Barnes was added in his place.
Teams must request approval from the commissioner’s office to replace injured players on a playoff roster. Injury removal renders that player ineligible both for the remainder of the current series and the next series, should the team advance. Were the Red Sox to erase their 1-0 deficit and take down the Rays, Richards would not be eligible to return until the World Series.
While Richards’ season-long numbers are underwhelming, they’re also a bit misleading. The 33-year-old began the season as a member of the rotation but struggled, leading to his transfer to a bullpen role in mid-August. Since moving into shorter stints, Richards has been far better than he was a starter, as MLBTR’s Steve Adams recently explored. Over 26 1/3 frames of relief to close out the regular season, he pitched to a 3.42 ERA/2.90 FIP.
Richards’ strikeout (24.8%) and walk (10.6%) rates were right around the league average, but he’s racked up grounders on nearly half the balls in play against him. He garnered increased trust of manager Alex Cora along the way, seeing increasingly higher-leverage work as the season progressed. His contract contains a $10MM club option (or a $1.5MM buyout) for the 2022 season.
Barnes’ year has gone in the opposite direction. The 31-year-old was among the game’s best relievers through the season’s first couple months, earning an All-Star nod and a two-year, $18.75MM contract extension in the process. He’s had a stunningly poor second half, posting a 6.48 ERA over 16 2/3 frames since the Break. He’s still fanned a solid 26.6% of opposing hitters in that time, but Barnes’ walk and home run rates have spiked dramatically over the past couple months. Those recent struggles led the Red Sox to leave him off the initial Division Series roster, but he’ll get another opportunity to step up after Richards’ injury.
Thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery.
Lol
Yikes! Hopefully we only need to Barnes with a 5+ run lead. Richards had been leaking oil for the last few weeks but he was still a better option than Barnes given Barnes’ struggles the entire second half of the year.
Yeah, would have thought it’d be Sawamura getting the call.
‘Mora needs to keep the ball more up instead of down, which he hopefully learned this season. Has good moving FB and hardest splitter in the league, but mostly keeping the ball down reason he gave up all those homers, despite all the K’s.
I’d still prefer to see him on the mound over lfty hernandez tho. ‘Mora, when not giving up blasts was very tough to score on.
At least now if Richards doesn’t get healhty, Sawamura can pitch in the ALCS and WS.
Barnes is not eligible for the ALCS, that’s a good thing. He was brutal again tonight.
I know it was only one game but the Sox looked hopeless outclassed. A steal of home? The play at home wasn’t really close.
Rays are a really good team. They can beat you in a lot of different ways, which is nice this time
of year
Randy Arozarena is the type of dude to cartoonishly float through the air when he smells a freshly-baked pie on someone’s windowsill
Arozarena is an excellent player. Franco can definitely be a potential all star in the future. The biggest question is the 3 kids that they have as starting pitchers. Will they be able to handle the post season pressure?
McClanahan did last night
ctguy that’s a great point, not every young pitcher is like our Cool Hand Luke aka Houck. And postseason experience matters, which could be why Tampa hasn’t won it all yet …. because they don’t hang onto their players long enough for them to take advantage of that experience.
Taylor has to work on his delivery, that’s the only reason home was stolen. Dude had a gigantic lead.
Yes. It was only one game.
Richards got hurt? Shocker of the year.
I was very surprised Bloom signed Barnes during the season. I thought they would go in a different direction.
Al that’s Monday morning quarterbacking, don’t ya think? Look at how great Barnes had been up to the point in time when he signed the contract. Nobody saw this coming.
One thing I think Barnes should do is throw the darn ball faster like he used to do. He’s taking too long, overthinking and trying to make the perfect pitches. He should just air it out without much thought.
Everyone says Barnes underperformed the second half… the truth is Barnes overperformed the first half of the season.
They’re not mutually exclusive.
It’s fair to say Barnes during the past few years has proven to be not as good as the first half of this season, and not as bad as the second half.
Wow, the Red Sox just killed TB 14-6 complete with 20 hits.Bloom sure did a great job….
Hernandez 5 for 6, HR, 3 doubles, 3 RBI
Verdugo 3 for 5, HR, 3 RBIs
Schwarber
Renfroe…..
Lol at all the Red Sox, Bloom, and Cora trolls lol…..eat crow
You’re not helping your argument by listing only two guys who had a good game. Renfroe and Schwarber didn’t do squat, and putting Schwarber at leadoff was obviously a HUGE mistake. He’s not comfortable there and he has way too much power to be hitting leadoff.
I do not write 1000+ word posts like KD troll, but if you want more than two here:
Renfroe – 31 HRs – 96 RBI – 816 OPS
Hernandez – 20 HRs – 337 OBP – 786 OPS
Schwarber – in only 134 AB – 7 HRs – 33 BB – .291 BA – .435 OBP – .957 OPS
Arroyo – .262 BA – .324 OBP – .769 OPS
Verdugo – .289 BA – .351 OBP – .778 OPS
Iglesias – .356 BA – .406 OBP – .915 OPS
Shaw- .319 OBP – .843 OPS
….but if you are a REAL Red Sox fan you should know these numbers already without the long winded, having to list everything post…
Well the first two players you listed with just their Friday night stats, not their season stats. Otherwise I would have agreed with you.
Bloom has made some good acquisitions, no doubt about that. I’ve said so plenty of times during the regular season.
However it’s the postseason now, so I’m not really interested in critiquing him again ATM.
Time to enjoy the games!
Red Sox were dialed in tonight. Even shaky Barnes held on to the 8 run lead. He clearly has a mechanical issue that is messing with his head. Was hoping to see something tonight but it wasn’t there. Brasier was lights out though and that’s good to see.
Where is KD17 to criticize the Sox?
The troll cowers.
Kd17 troll can not come up with a narrative to explain 92 wins, a wild card win, and an ALDS 1-1 series without looking like an even bigger FOOL than he is already.
He’s still typing it out, usually takes a few days.
What a great victory tonight! The team showed a lot of fortitude it was a great team effort. Let’s just enjoy the ride.
They both suck.
Gotta love Fangraphs and their “Playoff Odds” by team.
I’m not even talking preseason when they had 18.6% chance of the Rays making the postseason. Talk about embarrassing!
Before the ALDS began, they had Boston with like a 61% chance to win the ALDS.
Then after Game One they had Tampa winning the ALDS.
Now they have 57% chance Boston wins it.
Why do they have these one-game swings? The percentages they have prior to the ALDS is based on WINNING the series, correct? So if they think the Red Sox will likely win the best-of-5 (again they are saying WIN, NOT NECESSARILY SWEEP) why would losing the first game change that? Winning the first game is not a requirement for winning a 5-game series.
It’s amazing how absurd these “probability of winning” percentages look when you actually analyze them. By completely changing them after each game, they are admitting the percentages don’t take into account the possibility of the series winner losing a game or two in the process. So what’s the point?
Man, what a rush! Down 1-0 in the the series, and down 5-2 in the game? This reminds me of some of our comebacks earlier in the year. And one more appearance like this from Houck, and he is relegated to the BP forever. How many guys, in the entire league, could’ve delivered a game like that.
We need a vintage Eovaldi game tomorrow.
Joe Brady what a game an instant classic!
I want to see what these teams are going to do tomorrow. It is supposed to be ERod on three days rest, and Patino, who pitched tonight. Tonight reminded me a bit of 2018, even though we lost that one.
Anyone but Robles for the love of gd