Price seems on point
Plenty of positives in simulated game
While Steven Wright’s season-ending knee surgery has put a hole in the Red Sox’ starting pitching depth, the team seems confident a reinforcement is well on his way.
David Price pitched a simulated game before yesterday’s 8-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles at Fenway Park. Wearing a full Red Sox uniform and facing hitters Chris Young and Chase d’Arnaud, Price pitched three innings and threw 50 pitches.
The results were encouraging to president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and manager John Farrell, who watched closely together from behind home plate.
“I just saw David Price throw three innings out there and throw outstanding, so he’s coming back on a nice step-by-step progress,” Dombrowski said. “We’ll see how he looks tomorrow.”
If Price, who is working his way back from an ailing left elbow, doesn’t experience any setbacks today, the expectation is he’ll throw another session of four innings Tuesday in Milwaukee, according to Dombrowski, and he’ll keep progressing from there.
“He’s in a spring training buildup at this point, so I don’t have a specific time (for a return),” Dombrowski said. “I’ll be careful to put any timelines on it just in case there’s any little setbacks.”
But all signs are positive for Price.
“I talked to him myself the other day and he said, ‘Dave, I’m good. I feel really good,’” Dombrowski said. “He’s throwing the ball like he’s good. As I’m sure you’ll find out, his last pitch was 95 (mph), and he was sitting there consistently, 9395 the whole time period. And his other pitches were sharp too. The kicker is always how you feel the next day, but (it’s) encouraging at this point.”
Farrell, who said yesterday was the first time in Price’s recovery they used a radar gun to track velocity, among other things, added his consistent speed in the mid-90s wasn’t out of the ordinary. He also said Price used a good mix of his pitches, including breaking balls.
“Given what the naked eye tells you, with all the work that he’s been doing of late, that wasn’t a surprise,” Farrell said of Price’s velocity. “That’s been typical of how David is throwing the baseball.
“That was certainly encouraging and continues to be, with the work that he’s putting in. Good progression being made there.”
Who’s on third?
The Sox seem to have a hot mess at the hot corner.
The team yesterday placed Marco Hernandez on the 10-day disabled list after he suffered a left shoulder subluxation in the first inning of Wednesday’s game. It was the last thing the Sox needed with
Pablo Sandoval and Brock Holt already on the DL. They started Josh Rutledge (2-for-4) at third last night, and it seems it will remain that way for the foreseeable future.
“We’re not in the situation to have the platoon that maybe we envisioned when we got to spring training and what the roster was going to look like when we got out of camp,” Farrell said. “There’s been a number of changes there, the injuries, the number of errors made down there. I’ve considered an exorcism at third base, see if we can clean things up in some form or fashion. But right now it’s going to be (Rutledge).”
Dombrowski said there’s no plan to seek outside help, and there’s no consideration to bring up Rafael
Devers, who’s hitting well with Double-A Portland.
The plan for Holt, who is recovering from vertigo, is to start a rehab assignment with Portland on Saturday. Meanwhile, Sandoval, who’s out with a knee sprain, slowly is working back.
“He’s building on it, but he’s still getting the swelling out of there and taking those next steps,” Dombrowski said. “He’s riding the bike right now, but then he has to go and do some impact, some running at that point.”
So long, for now
After meeting last night for the ninth time in the first month-plus of the season, the Red Sox and Orioles finally get a break from each other. Their next meeting will be June 1 in Baltimore.
That should be enough time for them to cool off after a drama-filled two weeks that started with Manny Machado’s hard slide on
Dustin Pedroia in Baltimore and got even more heated this week when Machado went on an expletive-filled tirade after Chris Sale threw behind him.
But Farrell wasn’t any more happy to put this latest chapter to bed.
“Tonight’s only the halfway point,” he said. “All in all, it’s two highly competitive teams playing a game.”