4:15pm: The Red Sox have now made these moves official, announcing Schreiber’s injury as a right teres major strain.
2:15pm: The Red Sox are calling up relievers Justin Garza and Ryan Sherriff, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive. Sherriff isn’t on the 40-man roster but the Sox already have an opening there after designating Ryan Brasier for assignment on the weekend. The corresponding moves to get Garza and Sherriff onto the active roster are righty John Schreiber going on the 15-day injured list and lefty Brennan Bernardino being optioned, per Ian Browne of MLB.com.
Sherriff, 33 next week, has 44 1/3 innings of major league experience but scattered across multiple seasons. The lefty tossed 20 combined innings for the Cardinals over 2017 and 2018 and then 24 1/3 for the Rays in 2020 and 2021. Tommy John surgery in between those stints wiped out the latter half of his 2018 and then all of his 2019. In all of those seasons combined, he has a 3.65 ERA in the majors along with an 18.7% strikeout rate, 8.8% walk rate and 56% ground ball rate.
The Rays put Sherriff on waivers at the end of 2021 and he was claimed by the Phillies. A shoulder strain limited him to just 14 minor league appearances last year and he was outrighted off the Philly roster in August. He became a free agent at season’s end and signed a minor league deal with the Red Sox. Through 15 Triple-A appearances this year, he has allowed exactly 3.00 earned runs per nine innings, striking out 24.6% of opponents while walking 12.3% and getting grounders on 47.5% of balls in play.
Sherriff will give the Sox a fresh lefty arm after Bernardino has pitched in three of the past four days, including the last two. Richard Bleier is in the same situation while Joely Rodríguez has just come off the injured list, so the Sherriff-Bernardino swap makes their southpaw contingent a bit less weary. Sherriff still has options himself, allowing the Sox to perhaps reverse this lefty swap later in the year whenever the need arises.
As for Schreiber, he’s emerged as a key piece of the bullpen for Boston, posting an ERA of 2.22 last year while striking out 28.8% of opponents, walking just 7.4% and getting grounders at a 56.3% clip. He worked his way up the bullpen chart, earning eight saves and 22 holds on the season. This year, his walk rate has ticked up to 11.4% but he’s still managed to lower his ERA to 2.12 and pick up another six holds. He had departed last night’s game with lat tightness and manager Alex Cora said after the game that an IL stint was likely, per Alex Speier of the Boston Globe. His spot will go to Garza, 29, whom the Sox just claimed off waivers from the Angels last month. Between the two organizations, he has a 3.95 ERA in Triple-A this year.
Looks like there’s a new sheriff in town
We read a headline and automatically know what the first comment is gonna say almost every time.
And the second one would be “but they didn’t call up the deputy”
Haha I had to do it
Rishi – Yep, lots of dads here.
Expected the first comment to be this, did not disappoint excellent timing!
This sheriff will be DFA in about 2 days
Ham n eggs
Sherriff will be able to continue his trend of getting at least one MLB win every 3 years.
Hard to believe he’s only pitched 44 1/3 innings in the majors when it seems like he’s been around for like 10 years.
It’s crazy how some fellas are constantly going up and down between the Majors and Minors, and then one year they break out and everyone thinks they are new, only to find out they are already a year or 2 away from free agency, and have already been eligible for arbitration.
Once we are out of the wild card race, I hope we see Bryan Mata, Chris Murphy and Brandon Walter instead of 30 year olds who have pitched in the minors for 6 different teams.
Its crazy Bernardino was sent down instead of Bleier, screw the options.
So the Bosox are sans Bernardino?
Bernardino started out hot, then hitters caught on to him. He could still be useful.
milt – The numbers favor Bernardino over Bleier:
Bernardino – 3.65 ERA 1.378 WHIP 0.3 WAR .773 OPSA
Bleier – 5.79 ERA 1.393 WHIP -0.2 WAR .826 OPSA
miltpappas – I’ll bite!! How could he be useful? Is he also a plummer, a chef, a massuese, a landscaper? How can Bernardino be useful at the MLB level? Do you really believe his talent level is MLB?
Blair has too much service time he cannot be sent down unless he agreed to it.
All three of those guys have been awful this year.
Red Sox decided to take their Brasier off and now the Sherriff is here to restore order.
NYY – I’ve been saying for years whenever Brasier is off, the boys are let down.
When the starting pitching was bad, the bullpen was solid. Now the starting pitching is throwing well and the bullpen is trash. It doesn’t help that the offense has gone completely dormant too
Rsox – I think trash is a little harsh.
Kenley has been bad only for the last two games, because he overthrew during his 400th save.
Martin is extremely good, when he’s allowed to pitch (hasn’t since the 10th)
Winck has had just one bad game, his most recent one.
We still need to see what Joely has.
And Reyes has given up only one run all season.
Starting pitching throwing well? Only 3 out of 6 if you include Bello.
The offense was expected to go dormant. No way Duran could continue that pace, and outside of Yoshida & Dugie who in that lineup do you trust? .
Obviously I shoulda added Devers to the Trust List. LOL
I was just about to say….good catch.
Trash may be harsh but consider the bullpen surrendered 20 runs during the 4 game losing streak (including wasting gems by Paxton and Sale).
Thankfully the offense woke up tonight. Losing streak is over. Turner, Casas and Duran all went deep off of Luis Castillo. Hopefully a positive as they gear up for the west coast swing
Rsox – They won’t have to face Ohtani next week, that’s a positive!
No, but they’ll still have to pitch to him…
Rsox – It’s the nature of the beast created by Bloom. It’s all about talent.
The offense and pitching have a last place level of talent. Yes, some bad players can play well like in 2021 but most of the time teams with weak talent levels end up being inconsistent, which is EXACTLY the 2023 Boston Red Sox.
The hitting lost a ton of talent yet people have been fooled into thinking they are better than on paper based on early run production. Reality will always set in and good pitching will get out good hitting. It will shut down mediocre hitting. Even a massively juiced ball like the 2023 baseball won’t make this offense a juggernaut. It will find scoring runs against elite pitchers very difficult.
As of today Boston has Devers as an all-star hitter.
They have Yoshida, Duran, Verdugo all hitting like Tier 2 hitters but we don’t know if it will last or it’s just a fast start and they will regress to their means.
JT can be a Tier 2 hitter as well but he’s actually under performing for his skill level.
The rest of the hitters aren’t worth mentioning because they stink and are not MLB level players at this point in their careers. The good news is Casas and even Dalbec have upside that could potentially be realized in the future. The bad news is Kiki, Arroyo, Wong, McGuire and several other retreads are not going to improve on their weak careers. They should not be on MLB teams as anything more than back-ups.
The SP with a healthy Sale, Houck and Bello should provide excellent performances for 60% of the rotation. The problem is Kluber isn’t cutting it, Paxton is such a small sample there is no way to know if he will not get hurt or simply blow up as teams get a book on him. Pivetta is a solid bottom of the rotation guy. So the starting pitching may be inconsistent in the non Sale, Houck, Bello spots.
The bull pen has had a hiccup but will be fine. It’s rock solid. Kenley has spurts like this every year. No problem. Martin is excellent, Schreiber is excellent. Winckowski is excellent. The problem is when Cora uses others because he’s thinking he’s a brilliant pitching coach/manager. He’s not, it usually back fires and the team suffers from his lack of knowledge of pitching. Cora makes the relief vulnerable to inconsistency it’s not the talent in the pen.
never fear–Bloom will scour the waiver lists and fill all the holes.
The Sheriff Of Rock Ridge.
Well, they can’t be any worse than Braiser, right?
Getting might tough to speak the truth around here.
Yup, so many experts
Who cares. Go Dodgers.
If Tampa Bay can’t fix them nobody can fix them.
Rather have Andrew Chafin as my teams Sherriff and closer.
Bloom has an AMAZING skill at dumpster diving for scrubs !!!
Randy – Is it a skill or a vice?
Well, he did have an good appearance last night. Who knows?
Yankees are far more active signing free agents. In fact, they grabbed a couple of Red Sox castoffs: Ryan Weber and Franchy Cordero. But, when all you ever do is hate Bloom, you have to gobble the turkey every time the Red Sox do it.
it’s hilarious that people still try to beat that “dumpster diving” line as if other teams don’t make the same moves throughout the year. It belies a lack of baseball knowledge
LOL! I don’t get it. You could sign like 100 of these guys and I couldn’t care less. They’ll get 3-4 innings each and be gone when Whitlock & Crawford return. Meanwhile, they can treat as a little tiny try-out just if/when we have another injury.
Scerriff & Garza are rested — Brazier & Bernadino were pitched out. Whitlock and Crawford will be back soon. That’s how you get through 162 gms.
Valdez & Reyes have been great depth pieces. The Sox could still get a boost from Mondesi, Story and Duvall. So give Bloom credit for having enough warm bodies to stay in the playoff hunt.