Red Sox manager Alex Cora informed reporters today that right-hander Johan Oviedo has been diagnosed with a flexor strain. He has avoided surgery but will be shut down from throwing for six weeks. Chris Cotillo of MassLive was among those to relay the details of the situation.
“Thankfully, (the ligament) is really strong right now,” Oviedo said of his own arm. “It’s just the things that are around it, all the little muscles are what’s getting damaged right now. Still, it’s not what you want. You don’t want anything to get to this, but it’s just the case right now. No one wants to get hurt but it’s better to get rest and heal from it than actually going through a surgery or anything like it. We’re positive about it.”
As Oviedo himself outlined, it is good news, in a sense. He required Tommy John surgery in the fall of 2023 and missed the following season, in addition to part of the 2025 campaign. He started this season with diminished velocity and then landed on the 15-day injured list with a right elbow strain. If his ulnar collateral ligament had required another operation, it would have put him on the shelf for another year-plus.
Relative to that scenario, this is a welcome development, though it’s still quite notable. Even if he is fully recovered after six weeks of not throwing, he’ll then have to ramp back up, effectively starting spring training from scratch. Even in a best-case scenario, he’s probably looking at something in the range of a three-month recovery timeline.
In the short term, the Red Sox have a good on-paper rotation without him. They currently have Garrett Crochet, Sonny Gray, Ranger Suárez, Connelly Early and Brayan Bello taking the ball every five days. Both Patrick Sandoval and Kutter Crawford are making rehab starts this week and should be back in the mix soon. Prospect Payton Tolle is pitching in Triple-A. The rotation numbers haven’t been great so far, contributing to the club’s grim 3-8 start, but the results should be better going forward.
Still, it’s a less than ideal outcome. The Sox made Oviedo a key piece of their offseason. They traded a couple of prospects, including Jhostynxon García, for a three-player package headlined by Oviedo. At the time, Oviedo had just come off his surgery absence but showed some promise by posting a 3.57 earned run average with the Pirates in 2025. The Sox decided to jump on him, with Oviedo having two years of club control at the time of that deal. He will now miss a decent chunk of the first of those two years.
Turning to another part of the roster, Triston Casas appears to have hit another unfortunate speed bump. Casas recently tried swinging and Cora said it “didn’t go well,” per Cotillo. Casas began the season on the injured list, still recovering from last year’s knee surgery. About a week ago, a strained left intercostal muscle added to his woes. Thanks to those injuries and some torn cartilage in his ribcage in 2024, Casas has only played in 92 games since the end of the 2023 campaign.
The Sox don’t really need Casas for now, as they have Willson Contreras at first base. The designated hitter spot is being used to spread playing time between outfielders Roman Anthony, Jarren Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela, Wilyer Abreu and Masataka Yoshida. But getting Casas back to full health would give the Sox some coverage for the event of someone else getting injured, or perhaps allow them to make a midseason trade.
Casas hit 24 homers in 2023 and slashed .263/.367/.490 for a 131 wRC+. He is under club control through 2028. He’s in wait-and-see mode until he gets back into game action and it’s unclear when that will be.
Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images
The injury bug is alive and real
Not a good first look for the trade. This may be one Boston regrets.
Its a wash so far depending on how the guy they called up does..garcia is struggling really bad to start the season..
Injuries are a wild card in any trade. A team doesnt have to win every trade, just most trades.
Is the Password really looking any better to you, hitting a buck eleven at AAA?
J. Oviedo just needs a couple of months off… He’ll be fine.
Did you see T. Samaniego pitch today? He struck out the side. I think it is a little premature to call this a regrettable trade.
He looked good! Can we keep him around and bump Weissert when Slaten comes back!?
Yesterday was a great win, using Weissert, Samaniego and Watson to finish things up.
And it begins. Here come the lingering issues with Casas I was worried about.
Its time to move on from Casas, the work ethic doesn’t seem to be there. Can we really count on him even if he does have a decent stretch of health?
Right now, I wouldn’t think so, but he’s young enough still that this can be corrected. He has minor league options left so I don’t think it’s time to fully cut bait and give up on him. But he could definitely stand to benefit from being humbled a bit with a stint in Worcester instead of treated as a foregone conclusion they’ll work him into the lineup immediately upon return.
The Red Sox faithful need to put Casas in the rearview mirror. He’s the poster boy for the IR. As for Oviedo, he’s been damaged goods for most of his career which made him a perfect acquisition for the clueless Boston FO.
I’m not a huge Casas fan but he just turned 26 and has a career.800 OPS. He’s coming back from an injury. What’s the problem?
I’m gonna put your takes in the rear view mirror,
I wouldn’t be ready to put Casas in the rearview were I a Red Sox fan (which, praise the heavens, I am not). I think he still has a shot to be a decent player.
But the problem is pretty clear and it’s that he’s always coming back from an injury.
Lets not forget the injuries are happening on the most mundane tasks.
Swinging a Bat: Lost a Season
Running to Firstbase: Lost more than a season
Rehabbing an Injury: New injury, extending his stay on IL
He’s cheap, so leave him in the minors for insurance. But, clearly the Red Sox moved on from him when they traded for Contreras.
Casas still has 3 options left.
Breslow will occasionally do something good but is his own worst enemy half the time. He loved Oviedo’s velo and arm extension so much he ignored the career 4.29 ERA (despite his home games in pitchers park) and meager 2.6 fWAR through 82 games pitched, and despite throwing hard, less than a strikeout per inning and very high walk rate. Oviedo’s just not very good. On his best days (which are few and far in between), he’s an average pitcher.
Thirdbaseman:
If you can predict injuries with certainty in baseball, you’d be rich working in a Front Office.
He’s avoiding surgery for now. But what about later? I would suggest reducing the spin rates and velo. Just take it easy, man. Don’t go balls out on every pitch. Know when to bring it, and when to hold back a bit. These pitchers aren’t machines. They’re mere mortal men, and the human arm isn’t meant to contort in such horrific ways. It wasn’t that long ago that a pitcher went out and finished what he started on a regular basis. We need a dose of nostalgia in baseball amongst all these newfangled rules changes. Let’s bring back the complete game!
Unfortunately the brilliant minds who currently constitute Boston’s “brain trust” don’t have any better ideas than “throw as hard as you possibly can” or “swing as hard as you possibly can”, despite mounting evidence that it isn’t effective and is getting guys hurt.
Dirty – I have nothing to add because you nailed it!
Dirty- Breslow and Bailey think they can “fix” everyone by forcing extension and hard break down everyone’s throat once they get here. They try to fit every round peg into every square hole.
I’ve yet to see a pitcher come here and the FO says here are the things you do well, lets keep that and tweak a little and more development along the way. Its my way or the highway day one.
To be fair, i will admit theyve down a better job with the kids they’ve drafted, but, thats because they start on day one.
You can’t acquire guys today and tell them we know better than anything youve done so far, so scrap everything youve known and do it our way.
This is how Giolito got hurt, this is why they messed up Priester and Harrison, and why they basically can’t unlock Bello.
Sad – So true! Tibbs publicly said just that, he didn’t buy into the Sox system and was very relieved the Dodgers wanted him to just go with his strengths and what makes him most comfortable.
Playing for the Red Sox is like playing for a robot, they have complete tunnel vision and can’t comprehend players are human.
That’s a really great point. Their way is at least getting decent results with the kids they’re signing as amateurs or drafting, but has mostly been a trainwreck with trade and FA acquisitions. Good coaching should be able to adapt to a player’s strengths and weaknesses instead of trying to force them to do things they can’t do.
I don’t think Tibbs ever said anything like that. Post a link to the quotes. That would have been big news.
He sure did. This all but confirms they were messing with his swing which threw him off. The Dodgers, because they actually know what they are doing, allowed him to go back to what is comfortable for him, and now he’s raking and his prospect stock is taking off like a rocket. Imagine that.
latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2026-03-12/dodger…
“Tibbs said that joining the Dodgers helped him to rediscover himself and return to his form from his time at Florida State.
“[When I joined the Dodgers, they] were like, ‘Hey, you know, we just want you to be yourself,” Tibbs said. “We want you to do what you need to do to be successful. Like, we believe in you, we believe in what you did in college. We want you to get that back and be able to be successful with how you swing the bat and how you play defense, and like, we don’t want to take that away from you.’ So obviously, there was tweaks being made, and there was things we needed to change a little bit to get to that spot, but I think for the most part, they just allowed me to be me and work within those boundaries to help figure out how to continue to make that better and better and better.
“And with that being said, I just felt a lot of relief from that.””
Dirty – Even though I’ve posted that same interview a few times here, it’s still great to see you post it because it really says so much about what’s wrong with the Sox system and why so many players immediately flourish after leaving the Sox organization.
With Tibbs, how can you miss it? He was great in the Giants organization, then he sucked in the Red Sox organization, then he was great again in the Dodgers organization. Not a coincidence.
There’s an old saying, if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it.
And if you have a leak in your roof, don’t tear up the entire house and foundation.
BTW – Grissom is hitting .367 in AAA right now.
Of course he is. That’s so classic.
Dirty – Remember the trade that brought Nick Sogard & Ronaldo Hernandez?
The guy we traded, Jeffrey Springs, just pitched 7 innings against the Yanks today, giving up only one hit and no runs.
DW04: No, Tibbs didn’t say he didn’t buy into the Red Sox system, not in that article, which was my original point.
Earlier I looked to see if I could find any comments from Tibbs and I only found this article:
mlb.com/news/dodgers-prospect-james-tibbs-reflects…
Tibbs said: “When I got traded the first time, you know, it was bittersweet because I was leaving a bunch of guys that I’d been really close with, an organization that I felt comfortable with,” Tibbs said. “And then getting traded again (from the Red Sox), it was kind of the same way. I loved being there.”
Tibbs said he loved being with the Red Sox. Can you love being somewhere that you think is messing you up? Tibbs only played 30 AA games with the Red Sox. He wasn’t there long. I’m not sure what can be done with a player’s swing in that short amount of time. So, I have a hard time believing your conclusion at this point. You may be right, but I don’t see it right now.
Maybe I’m misinterpreting his comments, wouldn’t be the first or last time I’m incorrect about something, but that sounds an awful lot to me like he is implying that a previous team he was with in between the Noles and the Dodgers wanted him to play with an approach that wasn’t comfortable for him and wasn’t getting the kind of results wanted or expected of him.
Suppose he could’ve meant the Giants as this unnamed team, but when you look at the 3 Minor Laegue teams he played for last year:
Eugene (SF): .857 OPS, 12 HR in 57 games
Portland (BOS): .586 OPS, 1 HR in 30 games
Tulsa (LAD): .900 OPS, 7 HR in 36 games
That would seemingly line up perfectly with the Red Sox being the org who asked him to play a different way that wasn’t working, then after the trade being told to go back to what was working and beginning to flourish again.
Maybe he really did love it, I don’t know the kid I certainly can’t say any reason why he would or why he wouldn’t. But it could just as easily be a case of making it a point to say the right thing, which most athletes are known to do.
DW: Tibbs will be interesting to watch. Just like Elmer Rodriguez, Priester, Harrison, Fajardo, Dobbins, Teel, Montgomery, Fitts, Clarke, the Password and Yorke.
I guess you could read between the lines and interpret it either way. But, where there is no misunderstanding is Dave Roberts saying “the kid loves baseball and ……is a championship player”. I guess Breslow missed that about him, casually throwing him in a deal for a washed up SP.
Sad – Not sure what you think could be interpreted either way, he made it very clear the way he’s being treated by the Dodgers organization makes him much happier than he was before. He’s not gonna come out and mention the Sox by name because he’s not jerky like Kennedy, but it’s clear as day he’s referring to the Sox. They were his last organization, he said it right after leaving them not the Giants, and his performance with only them was very bad as he performed well with the Giants.
It’s kinda interesting the Sox are facing recently discarded pitchers in consecutive games, Drohan and tonight May who has been really struggling. Should hopefully be another easy win, important thing is Early having a nice rebound.
The Red Sox Haters Club. Are you still a “Fan” of a team if 95% of your posts are negative?
Fever- Not good to see the Sox struggling to get runs against May who has appeared to be a below average pitcher. Obviously something is off with the offense. Early has been solid, it was too bad he could not get through 5 innings. At least the back end of the bullpen looked good, just Kelly not able to get through the inning. On paper we have a really strong team, so as you have said these results make you really question the coaching. The pitching seems to be settling down, but if you can’t score more than two runs (especially when they were the result of the other team’s defensive miscues) you are not going to win games. I don’t think a power bat would have made any difference, so losing Devers and not signing Alonso is not the reason.
If they don’t improve as the year goes on, you have to wonder if they will rehaul the coaching staff next year. Eventually Cora and Breslow would seem to be in the hot seat. The players they have are too good to look so bad and they made a significant financial commitment this year so it is not that they have not put money into the team. Each game they lose against a very winnable opponent makes me concerned that they are not going to get back on track in time to turn the season around.
Uncle – Considering May’s ERA was nearly 16 coming into the game, I’d say struggling is an understatement! Either the Cards found something the past few days to fix him, or the offense is worse than we thought.
I think we all knew Roman is the key to the offense. He carried the team last year with his tremendous hitting, but obviously he’s struggling right now. The thing that is concerning, he is following in the footsteps of Campbell …. both got off to great starts after making their MLB debut, both then tailing off. It’s different from Pedroia, Casas etc who started badly and then it clicked for them. I pray the Sox aren’t messing up Roman like they messed up KC, that would be a major gut punch. With Roman having issues hitting and throwing, it sure seems like it’s a mental issue being made worse by Cora and the coaches (he should have played last night).
As for Early, I’m a big fan of the guy but in 7 career starts he’s averaged only 4 2/3 innings with high pitch counts. I do love how he’s so good at getting out of jams, last night I believe he struck out the final batter of every inning with multiple runners on base each time. He reminds me of Dice-K in that respect, lots of pitches. His career performance has been a bit misleading, only one time has he faced a good lineup …. that was the WC last year when he got hit hard. Obviously he can’t continue to throw 86-88 pitches over 4 innings. He’s got one more start to figure it out before facing tougher teams like the Yankees. I’m thinking the bullpen may be in his future.
Just curious, why do you not think a power bat would have made a difference? They haven’t hit a homerun since April 3rd, and in that time all 4 of their losses were by 1 or 2 runs.
I absolutely agree, when things go really bad it’s coaches who lose their job first. Henry may promote Cora to the front office, but he’s not gonna fire him. Breslow is safe for one more year.
Uncle: I think the pitching is good, but I’m not sure any amount of coaching will improve the offense. The only really good hitters they have are Abreu, Anthony, Yoshida and Contreras. The rest of the hitters are pretty average. They could have acquired another hitter, but the bats they could or should have acquired are off to bad or average starts to the season and would not have helped. Alonso, Bregman, K. Marte, E. Suarez and Devers are all off to mediocre starts to the season.
Fever- I just don’t think one big hitter could carry the team and all of the ones they were looking at seem to be off to slow starts. They have hitters that I thought would get on base more even if they had a limited number of players who were going to hit homeruns and it doesn’t seem like that is happening.
All- I agree that the big hitters who were available have not been impressive so far so I don’t know that any of them would have made a big difference. I feel like the potential is there for many of our hitters to get on base and players like Anthony, Contreras, Duran, and especially Abreu could drive them in, but we have so few players even getting on base that we seem asleep at the moment. At some point you have to question the coaches because you would hope they would get the most out of the players they have. Durbin has been a complete bust so far and with Mayer and Story not hitting we have too many dead spots in the lineup. Story carried the team offensively at times last year and that has certainly not been the case. To have May go from being terrible to looking like an ace (granted he did not get many strikeouts) is concerning.
Fever- It would be really unfortunate if all we can get out of Early is a long reliever. I wonder if he needs to work on his conditioning to be able to last longer into the game, but as you have said he is just using too many pitches to get through each inning. I still like his potential and will be curious to see him face some more challenging teams.
Uncle – Yes I agree about the big hitters having slow starts, could be acclimation more than anything. Or just a typical slump that happened to come early, such as Raleigh (.481 OPS) and JRod (.394 OPS) and Pasquantino (.459 OPS) and Tatis (.519 OPS).
It’s worth noting two of the biggest underperformers thus far have been Duran and Roman, which could be directly related to the OF logjam.
Still, having 8 guys with an OPS of less than .657 definitely brings concerns about the problem being systemic.
Uncle – In defense of Story, he has always been a very streaky hitter. He was awful until the Atlanta series last May, then he was awesome through the end of the season. I think he deserves at least 2 months before judging his season.
Roman is not gonna have many opportunities for RBI batting leadoff. He will never have anyone on base for his first PA of each game, and the 7-9 hitters are not very good at getting on base.
Uncle – Early as a reliever would be only for this season, especially when Sandoval and/or Crawford return.
Nobody is giving up on him.
Uncle: The more I follow MLB, minor league baseball and college baseball, the more it looks like above average hitters are hard to find. Most hitters are flawed and MLB pitchers will exploit the flaws. If we look at Dylan Crews, for example. He was rated the best college hitter a couple of years ago at LSU (which is in the SEC which is the best college baseball conference) and was the 2nd player taken in the draft. Since being drafted, he is looking pretty average in the minors and he has failed to stick on the Nationals in two attempts. This is just one example, but I see many flawed hitters at all levels. I think it is more likely that it is very hard to hit in MLB than bad coaching is leading to poor hitting. I don’t think coaching can always overcome a hitter’s flaws. I also don’t like putting all the blame on coaches. They could be partly to blame, but a professional athlete is definitely largely responsible for his performance.
Fever-I was assuming Story’s slow start last year was due to his still not being 100% from his injury. I hope it is just a slow start for him as it would have a big impact if he starts hitting like he did once he heated up last year.
That is true that if Anthony is hitting lead off unless he is hitting homeruns it will more be about him getting on base to be driven in. He seems like someone who should hit plenty of doubles and triples so if the guys behind him can get hits he should score quite a few runs. Granted not if he keeps hitting like he is now.
All- Batting averages definitely seem to have gone down in the past several years. There are few elite hitters that consistently get on base year after year. It is why players like Judge get the huge contracts. There are still great hitters out there but they are going to require contracts beyond what management is likely to pay.
This spring I am more looking at the players previous performance and it seems like so far they are not playing to their full potential. Certainly not just coaching, but something is off. Hoping they will start hitting soon.
You realize that swinging as hard as you can,hitting it with a great exit velo,and throwning very hard gets you a spot.It also gets you paid.How many 90 mph pitchers are on rosters.How many are top prospects.People want high velocity whether it is swinging a bat or pitching.Times have changed for the worse.
TB – I agree with your overall point, but there are exceptions.
The Red Sox just gave a massive contract to Suarez, who averages 90-92 on his fastball and 90-91 on his sinker.
They also acquired another guy, Sonny Gray, whose fastball and sinker are around 92-93 and other offspeed pitches 79-89.
I know, everyone’s after the sexy tools, but what good is swinging the bat as hard as you possibly can if you can never put the bat on the ball doing it that way? To people who understand that baseball is not played on a spreadsheet, a guy who can consistently put balls in play is a lot more valuable than a guy who strikes out 3 times a night, regardless of the exit velos.
Dirty – Does it make sense to you that the Red Sox preach swinging the bat as hard as you can on every pitch, and then they complain about the sky-high strikeouts?
Is it really possible they don’t understand harder swings mean less bat control?
Do they really not see the correlation between homerun hitters and high strikeout totals?
Just doesn’t make sense, at all.
Exactly why i would rather have a team of Tony Gwynns than Some power hitter.But Management and fans like power.Not singles hitters or weaker pitchers.Yes the Sox have two but how many get drafted in the first round that throw 88-91.
Power’s great, if a guy can still make contact while swinging hard! I love power hitting as much as everyone else and want to see them have some guys with that skill in the bag. Problem is those guys cost a ton of money and the team doesn’t want to give them that money. My issue is sending up a bunch of dudes who can’t sniff any contact when they’re swinging as hard as the team wants them to. That obviously does not work, and shouldn’t take someone with an Ivy League stats degree or a 20 year playing career to understand this.
Some guys are better off choking up a little, swinging a little softer, and dumping singles or doubles into the outfield. It is a crime that they are wasting someone with Jarren Duran’s skillset by telling him to go up there and try to sell out for a 3 run homer every time. Guy is a walking XBH if he puts a line drive into a gap, what are we even thinking trying to make him a 2 outcomes guy!?
Dirty – This is precisely why Fenway Park has been chanting “Sell The Team” all week. The players are so incredibly mismanaged, even when the farm system does produce talented players it seems inevitable Cora and Company will screw them up somehow.
Tibbs is 100% correct, the Dodgers are far better at handling players than the Red Sox are.
FPG: “Tibbs is 100% correct, the Dodgers are far better at handling players than the Red Sox are.”
==============
Tibbs never said that. Please stop making things up.
Fever- It was great to see Suarez have a solid game and get a win. You were correct when you said he would come around soon. Also got a bit more offense, still not getting many multi base hits. Contreras looked more like what we had hoped. Positive signs.
Uncle – Ranger was definitely a positive sign, I expect the same from Bello today.
The offense last night was deceiving, all 5 of the 9th inning runs were off a guy who came into the game with an 11.74 ERA and 2.217 WHIP. His pitches looked like beachballs to every hitter he faced.
Even the other 2 runs were off a guy who had a 5.40 ERA coming into the game.
Today will be a much better test against a decent SP.
Nice showing from Bello and the bats again today! Today and yesterday are a lot more like what I was expecting this team to look like. Hope we keep the momentum building against Minnesota this week! The Twins have looked surprisingly formidable so far. I don’t think it’ll last all year, but just our luck we catch them when they’re playing pretty good ball.
Dirty- Yes, great results again. Looking much better. I think it will be important for them to start winning series against more competitive teams. That will let us know they have turned things around.
Uncle – It was also a nice advantage having inside scouting info from their former catcher and pitcher, wouldn’t you say? 😉
Fever- It is helpful to hear what you observed because I have been just going by the boxscores. Not many strikeouts but at least Bello got through 6+ innings. Aside from Anthony and Durbin the bats are waking up and Contreras is definitely doing what I was hoping he would.
Dirty – I disagree on the Twins, you have to look a bit deeper. The Jays are really, really hurting right now ….. they have a ton of key injuries that contributed to them losing 5 of 6 to the ChiSox and Rockies. So the Twins winning that Toronto series is really not that impressive to me.
However, I am SUPER glad the Sox will be missing Bradley & Ryan!!!
Uncle – I totally understand. I’m at a point in my life when I can watch, attend or listen to probably 95% of the games and almost as many pre-game and post-game shows, that’s why I see things differently and mention things nobody else mentions.
Here’s something else I’ve learned: Seems that Rafaela has been taking pointers on HBP from two experts. He’s already got 3, his career high is 9. I’m very happy about that, whatever boosts the OBP without actually injuring the player ;O)
Obviously the Jays are in shambles, but the Twins are 6th in the league in runs and also just jumped all over the Tigers a couple of times. While I agree I think they’re a paper tiger, I’d rather play them later on when they’ve already folded and started mailing it in than right now while they’re still moderately frisky.
Dirty – Yeah Loomer was saying the same thing, you don’t want to play the bad teams early because that’s when they still believe they have a shot at the postseason.
And if you play them after the trade deadline, they are even easier to beat after selling off players.
Aaaaaaaaaand there’s exactly what I was worried about. This effing team, man.
Dirty – Sorry man but I talked about his last start in ST and his start in Houston, something was up. You live on max velo all the time, injuries happen.
If it was mechanical or pitch selection he’d be visibly angry. He wasn’t visibly angry at all. Whatever he says after the game, something HAS to be physically wrong with him.
Honestly though an injury wouldn’t be a season-ender for the team. Yankees managed without Cole last year, Sox can do the same without Crochet.
Keyword: CAN
Not saying they will.
Fever- Just saw the box score. Wow, gives up 10 earned runs and can’t get out of the second inning. Even bad pitchers do better than that. Not a good sign. You would think he was hiding an injury or he is really getting in his head. I am surprised he had a few solid games if it is an injury he is playing through. I assume we will hear something because the staff ace doesn’t usually fall apart this bad. Definitely a concern as far as the season goes. I wonder how Crawford and Sandoval are coming along.
Uncle – It was even worse. Only 3 swings & misses, didn’t strike out anyone, threw an awful wild pitch, and hit a poor guy in the ribs. A bad day now and then is normal, but not this bad.
As expected, both Cora and Crochet denied it was related to any health issues. I think it’s important to keep in mind the article directly above, they insisted Oviedo was 100% healthy just a week or so before he went on the IL.
I think whatever Crochet is dealing with, he will try to pitch through it and for strategic purposes won’t tip off opponents by stating he’s not healthy.
Even though Cora and the team are completely untrustworthy to be honest about injuries at this point, having watched the game myself and reading some comments after, I’ve made up my mind that for now, I think it’s likelier he was tipping pitches than it is he’s injured.
It makes sense. The guy throws 5 pitches. Even in a diminished capacity, that’s still a lot of guessing hitters have to do. They were sitting back and mauling him like they knew what was coming. And they might have. Zero offers on any cutters or breaking stuff, and his four seamer was a meatball the whole outing. The odds of that just happening by chance are not zero, but not good either.
Over the Monster made a great point in a post highlighting that in his third start of last season, his velocity was down 1.5 MPH on average after throwing 102 pitches in his second start. He just threw 107 against the Brewers last week, so there’s that. So unless his velocity continues to be down across multiple starts I’m not worried about that yet. He might just be ramping up still and need an extra day off to stay fresh.
Feel for his pitches has been generally bad, but it was bad throughout spring training. I put a little more stock in the word that he feels fine coming directly out of Garrett’s mouth, as opposed to Cora’s. Although on one level it is concerning he didn’t even know why he had nothing last night, on the other hand it could also be a positive sign that he did not have an excuse cooked up ready to lean on. If he was really trying to conceal an injury I think he’d have some talking points ready to shift the focus to something else. But who knows, this is all conjecture. I could easily be wrong.
Also, I should’ve saved it because now I’m trying to go back and find it but can’t, but I saw a social media post where someone was outlining that they thought they saw him tipping his pitches with his leg movement. I wanted to take a closer look to see if that idea has any merit to it, but of course now I can’t find it. But that’s an idea worth exploring.
For now I’m of the “flush it and move on” mindset. Don’t let it spill over into today and cost more games.
Dirty – You make some great points as usual, but I still think after all his secondary pitches were being hit he would have gone to his #1 pitch (heater) if he was healthy.
And he hadn’t pitched in 6 days, so it’s hard for me to believe 107 pitches in his prior start made a difference.
All we can do for now is speculate, perhaps he had a stomach bug or muscle cramp or any number of possible temporary ailments. Time will tell, if he pitches great the next dozen starts then we will all be happy.
Dirty- I hope you’re right. You never expect a game that dreadful to come out of your ace, but could be a combination of him being in his head due to his pitches not hitting the mark and the other team picking up his pitches. If he is tipping his pitches they need to get that figured out before his next start. You wonder why he is having such a difficult time this spring locating his pitches, hopefully that does not put him in a spiral that he can’t get out of.
Uncle – We thought last night was worst possible scenario, how about now with Contreras leaving the game after some possible back issues. Can you imagine losing him for an extended period of time? I know IKF was learning first base earlier, that would be a huge drop in offense though.
DW: Agreed we need to consider he may be tipping pitches.
Fever- I just saw the box score, another one sided loss and now a poor performance from Gray. Had not realized Contreras left with an injury. Unfortunately this is not looking like it is going to be a winning season. Luckily other good teams are struggling as well so who knows. I was really excited going into spring training and thought they had done enough in the offseason to be successful. I will try to stay optimistic, but each loss makes it look less likely that they are going to have the season I was hoping for.
Uncle – Coming into the season I was more bearish on Gray than most. He was a 4+ ERA pitcher last year, and peripherals aside I believe he will be a 4+ ERA pitcher this year.
The good news is the Sox have enough talent and the division rivals have struggled enough for me to believe the Sox will have a winning season again. They just have way too much talent. This team continues to remind me of the 2019 team that was completely unprepared to start the season, got off to a dreadful start, but recovered enough for a winning record.
The bad news is the Orioles & Jays & Yanks will have many of their injured players back which will make them tough to beat down the stretch.
Just remember a team is never as good as they look when they are winning, and never as bad as they look when they are losing.
Dirty..Umm..you might want to check your facts . As recently as 2024 the red sox used the fastball less than any team in mlb..cant imagine that philosophy has changed much with all the same brain trust in place…so..that basically proves your theory 100% false if youd like Google it and you will find more than a few links…next time do a little research before typing..yer as bad as fpg making things up
You want to talk about making things up, show me where I said anything about throwing fastballs.
Arent fastball the picth thrown the hardest?..you said something to the effect all the brain trust teaches is how to throw as hard as you can.
What did miss dirty?..or am I making that up ..perhaps I misunderstood you ..please help me understand what else you were referring to
There are different fastballs and everyone has different physiology. My release has a natural pronation whereas others might supinate. This makes throwing certain pitches more natural. I would surmise maybe less wear and tear if you utilize your natural tendency. I’m sure the physiology geeks (thinking of Tom House) would be on to this. Use Nolan Ryan as a case study. No hitter at age 42 with a devastating curve ball. There probably needs to be more study on this topic.
If you’re throwing a ball at all, you can throw with max effort. The pitch type is irrelevant. My point is that they are over-exerting themselves and putting too much stress on their arms, regardless of pitch type.
Last May Giolito completely reinvented his slider under the guidance of Bailey and Holt which in his words allowed him to “rip it” more like a cutter – or put another way, throw it harder. Gio went on to miss the WC round with elbow soreness which is also a major reason why he remains a free agent.
Bello’s best out pitch used to be his changeup. Under direction from Bailey last year, he threw a fastball (primarily his sinker but also with a new cutter and to lesser extent a 4 seamer mixed in) 65% of the time last year. Thanks to their throwing program he didn’t even make it into a game in Spring Training before he was hurt, and started the year on the IL with a bum shoulder. There wasn’t officially an injury listed with it but he was also visibly fatigued by the end of the season – after routinely going 6+ IP per start all summer he only made it into the 6th once in September and he looked like a completely different pitcher. Because he was throwing his changeup harder than before, it lost movement and speed differential from his fastball, rendering it ineffective. This played a part in why he continued to struggle with walks and hits while striking out relatively few guys despite an impressive ERA.
Oviedo came out this spring giving max effort from the jump – averaging around 95 MPH and topping out around 98 early on in Spring Training this year. By the end of the month and in his first appearance in Houston last week, he could only hit 93. Now he’s on the IL with – you guessed it! – a flexor strain.
There are plenty of other guys I could keep going on about, but this hopefully is enough to demonstrate what I’m talking about.
Thank you for taking the time to go in to detail that makes alot of sense.
No problem. If I wasn’t being clear enough that’s on me. And part of me is torn because it’s been hard to argue that Breslow and Bailey have done a far better job developing young pitching and getting results compared to Chaim’s regime. But the track record they’re starting to build has me worried we’re going to be just like the Dodgers when it comes to killing guys’ arms instead of maximizing their shelf lives, and that is one of few ways I actually don’t want to emulate them.
The guy who should be on the “hot seat” right now is Fatse. A. Cora is not going anywhere.
Monstah- I know deep down that Cora isn’t moving. But, (while not defending him) Fatse doesnt teach defense or baserunning or inspire the players.
This team for 5 yrs has lacked inspiration, motivation and fundamentals. Those things are explicit domain of the manager. Cora does none of them. This team may be worse defensively (right now( than at any point I’ve seen in the last five years.
There’s always a danger in trading for pitchers since the other team knows more than you possibly can. It does seem like a pattern with the Red Sox but probably other teams as well.
Interestingly said. Everyone always asks, “would Greg Maddux (type) get drafted and play in the mlb now?”
Baseball was never a ‘copy-cat’ league like the NFL is. But, its certainly become one. Analytics can’t see the forest for the trees. Lost in all the numbers and spreadsheets is the player.
Funny part is, analytics were originally used to find players who were different, equally good as mlb players but until devalued. Now its exactly the opposite as the analytics are used to exclude players who aren’t like anyone else.
Sad – You make several excellent points!
Maddux was a true pitcher, one of the best ever.
So true about copy cats. Seems like Henry always wants to copy others …. first it was the Moneyball A’s, then it was low budget Rays, then it was the contract extension Braves. What he doesn’t realize, you need the right people to emulate those teams. Just because it brings varying success for some teams, doesn’t mean every team can do it. Just because Breslow is an Ivy League guy, doesn’t mean he knows everything or is good at everything.
Analytics has become information overload, it leads to not valuing the right data enough. And look at all the times when humans have beaten computers. Years ago there was a Russian boxer, not sure if his name was Drago? Dick Drago maybe? Anyway, he was preparing for this big fight against a guy named Rocky, and Drago’s managers used the latest computer technology and data while Rocky trained old school by dragging heavy stuff and doing other things that farmers typically do. Guess who won? Not Drago!
So true about different players. The whole point used to be finding hidden value such as high OBP, but now with everyone looking for the exact same thing then nobody is finding anything that’s different from everyone else.
I remember in little league in the sixties I kept all my stats, batting average, slugging percentage, on base percentage (I was big into that), and strike outs. Given my strike out rate was 50%, I was pretty sure I would be a pitcher. Then when the DH came along, I was not that unhappy. Playing as an adult, I didn’t bat very often but when I did it was pretty awful. You didn’t need analytics, you just had to watch. Then one game I hit an absolute bomb and the whole team reacted. My Bartolo Colon moment.
hayzee – You should clarify it was your Mets Bartolo Colon moment, not the Red Sox Bartolo Colon.
I distinctly remember his 2 PA’s with the Red Sox against the Phillies, very memorable.
Yes, the Mets version. Unfortunately there was no fence. And I was running slower than Colon with a badly bruised hamstring so I only got a double out of it. I mean it was an absolute bomb that even shocked me. I had driven a golf ball over 300 yards so I guess I had the power in there somewhere. But it was all luck.
As far back as I can remember playing baseball from 1966 to 1999, all anyone cared about was how hard you threw. The romance with velocity is not new. In fact, it’s always been there. What has changed is a constant stream of rule changes to aid the hitters, all at the pitchers’ expense. I won’t bother to list them, the internet’s not big enough.
Anyone who is surprised at the pitchers’ modern day efforts leading to expansive injury problems hasn’t been paying attention as the game has done NOTHING to help with the pitchers’ health.
The Yankees are having a nice stretch.
Details at 11.
In other news, Orban is OUT! And we went around the moon and back with a Canadian.
All is well.
FIRE CORA AND THE HITTING COACH IT’S TIME‼️
FIRE CORA AND THE HITTING COACH IT’S TIME‼️
FIRE CORA AND THE HITTING COACH IT’S TIME‼️
FIRE CORA AND THE HITTING COACH IT’S TIME‼️
FIRE CORA AND THE HITTING COACH IT’S TIME‼️