10:38PM: There are “no red flags as far as structure” to Martin’s shoulder, manager Alex Cora told MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo and other reporters. The Red Sox are hopeful that Martin might be facing just a minimal 15-day absence.
12:12PM: The Red Sox announced a series of roster moves this afternoon, placing right-hander Chris Martin on the 15-day IL (retroactive to Thursday) with right shoulder inflammation. To replace Martin on the active roster, the club has selected the contract of right-hander Jake Faria from Triple-A. To clear a 40-man roster spot for Faria, the club has transferred right-hander Wyatt Mills, who is suffering from right elbow inflammation, to the 60-day IL.
Martin debuted with the Rockies back in 2014, but struggled to a 6.19 ERA in the first two seasons of his big league career before departing for Japan, where he dominated in the NPB to the tune of a 1.12 ERA in 88 1/3 innings of work. That performance earned him another shot in the big leagues, where he’s been a successful setup man ever since. Since the start of the 2018 season, Martin has posted a 3.41 ERA (135 ERA+) with a 3.06 FIP in 221 2/3 innings of work.
While his top-level run prevention numbers last season left something to be desired in the beginning of his season as a member of the Cubs, his 4.31 ERA in his 31 1/3 innings as a Cub were inflated by a .393 BABIP. Underlying metrics saw him strike out 30.1% of batters while walking just 3%, leaving him with a 3.01 FIP during his time with in Chicago. Those strong underlying stats manifested in a dominant stretch run following a midseason trade to the Dodgers: in 24 2/3 innings in Dodger blue, Martin posted a fantastic 1.46 ERA with a microscopic 1.13 FIP.
That left Martin entering free agency with a 3.05 ERA, 2.18 FIP, 32.9% strikeout rate, and 2.2% walk rate in 2022. Those numbers were strong enough to net him a two-year, $17.5MM deal with the Red Sox, where he figured to slot into the back of the Boston bullpen alongside fellow offseason signing Kenley Jansen. Those plans will now be put on hold for awhile, however, with Martin headed to the IL. No timetable has been announced for his return. While Martin is on the IL, John Schreiber and Josh Winckowski figure to handle late-inning duties alongside Jansen.
With Martin on the shelf, the Red Sox turn to Faria. The 29 year old did not pitch in the majors in 2022, though he has a career 4.70 ERA (90 ERA+) with a matching 4.74 FIP in 203 big league innings with a 20.9% strikeout rate a 10% walk rate. After spending 2022 in the minors with the Twins, where he struggled to a 7.48 ERA in 43 1/3 innings of work, Faria signed a minor league deal with the Red Sox back in February.
Mills was acquired from the Royals in a trade this winter, but was shut down last month with elbow inflammation. He has a career 6.21 ERA in 42 big league innings, albeit with a much more palatable 3.84 FIP.
I realize it’s a very small sample size, but why is Faria getting promoted here?
It’s a combination of mlb-capable depth, and, knowing a corresponding move will need to be made on the backend when guys come off the IL.
This is a guy you can probably pass through waivers. Meanwhile, the club doesn’t want to give up on keeping the kids that are up stretched out as starters due to how fragile some of the members of the rotation are.
GASox – In my always humble opinion, with Paxton supposedly making his final rehab start, I would think he will replace Faria and both Houck and Bello will move to the BP with spot starts possible.
Paxton-Sale-Pivetta-Whitlock-Kluber in the rotation … it has potential.
I’m pretty sure that Bello will stay in the rotation or be sent to AAA.
FPG – Is Sale in the rotation? I don’t see him listed. His turn was to be on Monday and Bello is scheduled to take it. Considering how long he’s been lasting in games giving him a non-regular amount of rest is so typical of the idiocy that is Cora. If you expect your ace to get right after a very, very long lay off, you have to pitch him regularly not on the whim of an idiot.
Billy – I think that depends on how well he pitches. If he pitches to a 5+ ERA then I don’t think he stays in the rotation. If he pitches well, who moves out of the rotation? I cannot see any of the pitchers I listed getting moved.
KD – Great post, I totally agree! A 6-man rotation is such a waste, that means 6 of your pitchers are available basically just once a week. And knowing Cora, it won’t change his early pull approach. The Red Sox will continue to have starting pitchers among the fewest innings pitched in MLB.
I’m pretty sure they already said bello will b in the rotation so try again
Bostonsports85 – ESPN has Cora going to the following six man rotation as of today:
Bello, Sale, Kluber, Houck, Pivetta, Whitlock
Great way to throw off the timing of all the starters by adding a sixth starter. I guess if I only sat on a bench as a utility player I wouldn’t understand why a SP needs to create a sustainable routine for pitching.
The sooner they fire Cora the better.
Boston – If you’re referring to the recent article here, it included Bello is “expected” … and it didn’t say who, if anybody, said it.
Follow the team long enough, you’ll learn not to trust what we are told.
Last year it was “expected” Whitlock would remain a starter all season … how did that work out?
BB writers are here for your entertainment, not to provide valuable insight, unless it’s Lou Merloni.
IRT Bello, rookies generally don’t last the entire year in the rotation. With a late start, maybe he can last the full season, but rookies generally get shut down well short of a full year.
Joe – I agree on both! Loomer is fantastic, one of my favorites. He tells it like it is.
And yes, rookie starting pitchers are usually on a strict innings limit … one of the reasons why I don’t think Bello will still be in the rotation when Paxton returns, unless there’s further injuries to a starting pitcher.
The promotion may be a short one as either Faria or Crawford will be optioned to make room for Bello tomorrow
No options for Faria, so he is probably DFA’d tomorrow for Bello.
suit – You’ve just increased the suspicion that you work for the front office. Haha!
So why Faria and not Crawford, when Faria didn’t have options and Crawford does?
Crawford has been brutal this year and throughout his career.
Fever: Good question. Looks like they gave up on Faria.
Because Crawford has some talent, if horribly inconsistent, while Faria doesn’t.
Red Sock suck so far- Coldplay suck so not surprising – better times ahead one hopes
1 game below .500. I dont think you understand the word suck.
Well more like meh. They looked shoddy v the Os. Spring break on the catchers. Girls gone wild!
“Meh” Spot on. Big difference.
Like Coldplay then . Irritating but not so bad as to get you to flip the channel
Lol, nice one.
Irritating but not so bad as to get you to flip the channel
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I don’t think we are close to deciding if this team is good, bad, or something in-between. The hitting and BP have been okay+. We need a lot more production from Sale & Kluber, and then we could be good.
@Dumpster
Suck so far? The Red Sox are 8-8 and just took 3 straight from the Angels and scored 16 runs while doing so. And this team that you say sucked did it without Duvall and Yoshida. Seriously, what more do you want?
lamars – TALENT. That’s what I want. Clearly Bloom and I aren’t on the same page!!
8-8 is nothing to thump your chest over. They are out of the playoff race as of now and the schedule continues to get more difficult. As of right now they are 1 game behind a 74 win pace based on strength of schedule. They need a sweep of the over-rated Angels to get back on the 74 win pace. They have to beat Ohtani to make that happen!
Everyone is glad they are winning but a couple of wins against an average team shouldn’t change what you see in the mirror. The team lacks talent on the hitting side and that’s not going to change without a significant move by Bloom. Duvall and Yoshida are very easily replaced since they are league average players so not having them simply moves two new league average or worse players into the line-up. They scored runs against a weak LAA pitching staff. They see LAA’s ace today. If they beat Ohtani, that’s something to get excited about. Being 8-8 during the weakest part of their schedule is not really something to get excited about.
KD – I hate to burst your bubble, but today’s lineup has the two hottest Red Sox hitters – Dugie & Turner – missing.
Against RHP Dugie is batting .333 with an .868 OPS
Turner’s career numbers against RHP are much better than against LHP, and he’s 8-for-20 in his last 5 games!
Cora has always done this, weakens the lineup against tougher pitchers. It’s like he decides to forfeit before the game even starts. Sure they could still win, but without Dugie and Turner it’s obviously much harder.
FPG – Cora can feel better about losing this way. He can tell himself “of course we lost, we had our two best hitters out against Ohtani, what more could anybody expect?” Ready-made excuse to justify an inevitable loss. I’m with you guys, nothing will get better on the field until he’s gone. Cora to the unemployment line is the first necessary step for any sort of Red Sox revitalization. ( Now watch them beat Ohtani today and sign Cora to an extension and I eat crow.)
Ignorant – That’s an excellent point! Cora has said in the past winning games before June is not a priority to him, all he cares about is giving the players a lot of rest so they are well-rested for September and the postseason.
And rested they were in 2019 and 2022, as they watched the postseason from their living rooms!
Jake is a great guy! Hope he does well! (Except agst the Rays)
No any real Sox fan can see they suck….
You confused “real” with “hater”. One game below .500 isnt that bad, if you think it is, its because youre only looking for the bad.
Anyone who has a different opinion than you is a hater. Grow up.
For one day, the ‘Haters’ were completely wrong.
Justin Turner (terrible signing) — Both RBIs
Whitlock (should be in the bullpen) — Great Start
Ort (You kept him instead of …) — Scoreless Inning
Brasier (Every haters favorite target) — Scoreless Inning, Save
———
People saying a .500 team “sucks” need to “grow up”.
It’s amusing the hate Brasier gets. I get that fanbases like to pick a guy and bust on him, but it just shows a lack of perspective.
Career WHIP of 1.22. Career FIP of 3.76. Both of those numbers are above average, pretty much all of those numbers other than 7 games were with the Red Sox.
He isn’t great, but if the Red Sox cut him he’d be out of work for about ten minutes.
Hater wow your ignorant.
“No any real Sox fan can see they suck….”
Reality: Red Sox are 9-9 and have played 15 games against teams over .500. They have scored the 4th most runs in the league, while the pitching has shown marketed improvement as of late.
In no stastical or observational reality does that team “suck”. If your first sentence is still your opinion, you are a ‘hater’.
A team at 500. With the financial backing that the Sox have. Means they are a bad team buiktvqrong and flawed…. 500 not bad it is bad. If you have to pay 4 hundred plus to get two in and watch yes 500! Is bad
Well, they’re 8 and 8. 16 games in, they’re a .500 team. Neither good nor bad. A little streaky right now. Give it time.
There is a better team in there than people realize. When the starting pitching finally comes around they will surprise some people
It’s going to be all about pitching with this team. There’s enough talent to put together a solid staff, but Sale and Kluber have to be firing at least decently and Paxton would be helpful.
whyhayzee – The uptick against the highly over-rated LAA Angels is a good thing. A win on Patriot’s Day and they are back on their 74 win pace. That’s a good thing. Minnesota is next and should give everyone a better feel for how good the hitting and pitching really is. LAA has little pitching and their bats got shut down by the Red Sox pitching which is an excellent sign for staying close to .500 for the year.
Giving it time really isn’t the answer based on the schedule. The schedule continues to get tougher as they move to May and June. The problem with a few unexpected wins is we start seeing comments like there is a better team in there than people realize. That’s simply not true. Their talent level didn’t change because they beat an over-rated LAA team. It’s the same as it was to start the season, The hitting talent is down significantly and the pitching talent is rising!!
Sale isn’t going to get back to being Sale if Cora keeps passing him in the rotation. Cora has never understood pitching so he can’t grasp the concept that a recovering ace needs to go out every five days to regain his control. Sale is all over the place with his pitches due to the exceptionally long lay off. He needs consistency and volume to regain his control. Cora always finds a way to mess with Sale and he’s doing it right now by skipping his scheduled start on Monday.
Let’s hope the youngster pitchers have one more outing better than their skills against LAA on Monday and the team returns to their 74 win pace.
I just can’t get people reading so much into this.
How have the sox fared, and against who?
Swept by the Rays. Played zero against clubs like HOU, NYY, TOR, SD, ATL, LAD… that needle easily falls the other way, where were all the “projections” when it was a 5-8 club?
Wait until they start beating up on competitive clubs to think this squad will do anything but flirt with .500 as their ceiling.
Last year the same dumbasses did the same thing got all excited after winning streak against Oakland Texas etc and then couldn’t beat division rivals
KD17, the number of people who understand pitching is nearly zero. As a pitcher, it’s very frustrating. There have been pitchers who really got it, but they often also had immense talent. Seaver, Ryan, Tom House, and a few others come to mind. I have read their books, watched their videos, tried to absorb as much as possible for myself, a man of modest talent at best. Baseball “culture” is ALL about hitting. The tiny morsel that’s about pitching only cares about velocity. People are stupid.
whyhayzee – I was a very lucky guy as a young man because I got to be a two way player. My father was a pitcher and I had some success as a pitcher in HS and College.
You are so right about the lack of understanding about pitching. Due to the popularity of high action sports like football, hockey and basketball, fans gravitate towards high action activities in baseball. How far can you hit the ball, what velocity was it hit at and how fast does a pitcher throw. That’s really not the beauty of baseball.
Watching a Koufax curveball, or Gibson’s slurve or Maddux tease a batter with a pitch that appears to be a strike and then isn’t has always been the fun in baseball for me. I like the hitter who can take an outside pitch down the opposite line, the inside pitch down the other line and the other pitches between the infielders or outfielders. Sure, home runs are fun, but doing what it takes to win a game and help a team mate score was always the fun in the game for me.
Cora was a bench player most of his career, He was also known for being lazy from a work ethic standpoint, Those issues have carried forward into his managing. Rather than remaining with or replacing the current manager with an astute former pitching coach who also pitched, Boston opted for a bilingual inexperienced bench coach who always took short cuts in his career. What exactly is he going to know about pitching?
Knowing this huge shortcoming of Cora Boston did nothing to help the unqualified manager. No brilliant pitching coach to take all his decisions related to pitching. They just let this unqualified guy take the reigns and destroy the elite pitchers he had on the roster.. Cora has made mistakes since he joined the club because he’s not qualified to manage a pitching staff. Guys like Price (a Cy Young Winner) and Sale (a perennial all-star) end up looking terrible. The scary part is nobody noticed the complete lack of pitching expertise on the MLB club and as a result has done nothing to fix it over the last 5 years since they dismissed Farrell..
Now the youngsters could be a new wave of excellence at pitching yet the ownership and front office still haven’t done ANYTHING to fix the problem they created in 2018 when they hired Cora. They need to hire someone to take away all pitching responsibilities from Cora. Until that happens, guys like Sale, Kluber and probably Paxton will struggle under Cora’s leadership.
I’m with you on changing the baseball culture back to an emphasis on those who execute pitching and hitting with precision not velocity. If you can throw 100 that’s fantastic. If you can throw 100 with pin point accuracy, that’s a pitcher. Lets hope things reverse as the real baseball fans become more vocal against the absurd escalation of velocity or substance.
I don’t completely agree with your assessment of Cora but I do wish they had a top flight pitching coach.
Now I have to dive into yet another passion, Ahmad Jamal just passed away.
whyhayzee – 92 is a long life. RIP
@GASoxfan
Everyone had been swept by the Rays until they ran into Toronto. And the RS still scored the most runs vs Rays than anyone they faced so far. Houston who is 7-9, split with 6-10 WS and lost the series to 5-9 Detroit. And the 8-8 Dodgers and the 8-9 Padres were the only team to play a series against the Braves. Have yet to play the RAYS, HOU, NYY, ATL or TOR.
@KD17
“Knowing this huge shortcoming of Cora Boston did nothing to help the unqualified manager. No brilliant pitching coach to take all his decisions related to pitching. They just let this unqualified guy take the reigns and destroy the elite pitchers he had on the roster.. Cora has made mistakes since he joined the club because he’s not qualified to manage a pitching staff. Guys like Price (a Cy Young Winner) and Sale (a perennial all-star) end up looking terrible. The scary part is nobody noticed the complete lack of pitching expertise on the MLB club and as a result has done nothing to fix it over the last 5 years since they dismissed Farrell..”
Please enlighten us on how Cora destroyed elite pitching? I hate to say this but your disdain for Cora is showing and you’re just talking out of your ass. Price pitched for 2 seasons under Cora and was traded at the deadline in 2019, Sale had he best season under Cora and struggled with arm problems and the tendency to give up the long ball, 24 hrs in 147 INNINGS is what did in Sale that next season. He missed all of 2020 and in 2021 made 9 starts and looked like his own self and in 2022 self inflicted injuries caused Sale to miss about 2 starts in 2023. None of this had anything to do with Cora. What about Erod? He had his best two seasons under Cora and missed all of 2020 due to covid illness and struggled mightily in 2021. He then signed with Detroit in 2022 and missed most of the season dealing with a personal matter, and again that had nothing to do with Cora. Let’s talk Eovaldi, besides when he had 18 starts in 2013 and finished with a 3.30 ERA. He had his best seasons under Cora in 2021 and 2022 and he missed 12 games last year. So please again tell us what elite pitching did Cora ruin?
Lamars – So I’m talking out of my ass because you disagree? hahaha
Get your facts straight if you want to argue with me. First, Price was traded to LAD with Mookie right before COVID hit in FEB of 2020. Next, Sale had many great seasons before Cora and then Cora benched him in 2018 when he was on his way to a Cy Young. I think that’s a significant negative impact. Then in 2019 Cora changed Sale’s wind-up mid=season (something a little manager knows not to do because of the impact on the arm of the pitcher) and Sale needed TJ surgery just a few months after the change. How’s that for a negative impact? You really have no idea what you are talking about!!
If you think E-ROD is a quality pitcher there is no point in discussing pitching with you. He flat out sucks. One of the smartest things Bloom did was letting that over-rated clown go. What’s he done since? NOTHING. Why? He sucks. So don’t EVER put E-Rod in a conversation with Sale and Price.
You are out of your league talking about pitching with me. Your comments show how little you know about pitching. I take no issue with you wanting to protect the moron known as Cora but don’t take cheap shots at me because you are ignorant of the facts. Do your homework.
Sale was great under both Ventura and Farrell. Once he was under Cora his careen went dramatically down hill thanks to Cora’s mismanaging him. Price won a Cy Young and like Porcello took a step backwards the year after his big year but it wasn’t until Cora showed up that Price started getting the injury bug because Cora over-reacts to issues with pitchers. He has no background in pitching and he’s not a bright person. He pretends to know more than he actually does. I’m sure you’ve met pretenders like him in life. Cora is a perfect example of a BS artist. Watch his interviews, he talks and says nothing because that’s what he knows.
SO I’m bending over right now so you can read my lips. Cora sucks as a manager, as a human being and as a baseball player!!! That’s me just talking out of my ass again!!! hahaha
“then Cora benched him in 2018 when he was on his way to a Cy Young.”
——————–
And the shoulder injury had nothing to do with it?
Here’s how NBC viewed the situation at the time:
“Sale picked up where he left off with a spectacular 2018 season. He went 12-4 with a 2.11 ERA and 237 strikeouts in 27 starts. Those numbers helped him place fourth in Cy Young voting, but he may have won the award had he not missed time due to left shoulder inflammation.”
nbcsports.com/boston/red-sox/chris-sale-injury-his…
This is how the Boston Globe viewed it:
“Sale hasn’t pitched since Aug. 12, when he struck out 12 batters in five shutout innings against the Baltimore Orioles. He was placed on the 10-day disabled list Aug. 18 (retroactive to Aug. 15) with mild left shoulder inflammation — the same reason that landed him on the DL just a few weeks prior.”
boston.com/sports/boston-red-sox/2018/08/29/curt-s…
10.80 ERA at Worcester and he gets the call. That is so Bloom.
Bloom is smarter than everyone else he is too smart for any of us to understand his brilliant contrarian thinking and yes I’m being sarcastic
He’ll probably also get -0- IPs, You probably shouldn’t go into full-scale, running-out-of- room-screaming mode just yet.
Good morning Milt. Faria pitched -0- innings and is now gone. Please feel free to get on with your life again.