Creative options for rotation
The Red Sox are not going to rush David Price back to the starting rotation, but Alex Cora sounds like he has other plans brewing.
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Cora wouldn’t say his plans specifically, but mentioned that, with four offdays in the final three weeks of August and three more off-days in September, the Sox could get “creative” with their starting rotation.
Does that mean some starters might be used out of the bullpen?
“We can be creative, we know that,” the manager said before Saturday’s game against the Angels. “Everybody knows that. The cool thing is our guys, they understand that and can fit different roles. I’m not saying we’re going to be that creative, October-creative. But we know where we’re at. We have to gain ground. And we have options to do that.”
Cora said the Sox will sit down during Thursday’s offday and map out the rotation for the rest of the year.
Nathan Eovaldi has been in the bullpen, throwing multiple innings most times out. Cora said he can throw three innings right now, but implied that it could change later, perhaps if they wanted to use Eovaldi as a starter or long relief man in a piggyback situation.
Surgery?
Price seems to be the wild card in this scenario.
The lefty said Saturday he’s starting to feel better after a cortisone shot relieved the pain in his left wrist. The shot is supposed to take care of a cyst that’s developed. If the syst bursts and it doesn’t return, Price could avoid surgery.
“But if not, it’s something we’d have cut out,” he said. “That wouldn’t be a very long recovery process.”
Though he hasn’t resumed throwing yet, Price has started doing exercises again.
“Three or four starts ago, it kind of just affected the range of motion in my wrist,” he said. “My hand strength and being able to get out front and execute pitches. It was very tight. Not being able to take my wrist backwards, that makes it tough. I feel like the ball was coming out of my hand just a split second too early and just trying everything I could to cope with that and get it out front.”
Is it similar to the carpal tunnel he had in the same wrist last spring?
“It’s on the opposite side of my hand,” he said. “The carpal tunnel was on the inside. This is on the side and the outside of my hand so it’s a little bit different in that aspect. The tightness of my hand and my wrist kind of feels similar.
“I think they’re totally separate. I don’t think the carpal tunnel causes the cyst.”
As soon as Price is ready to throw again, he can be activated almost immediately, Cora said.
“With David, it might take a while now but when he’s fine, it’s a sprint,” Cora said. “He’s showed it before. It doesn’t take that much for him to get back.”
A long shot
Steve Pearce can do everything except run.
“And that’s what I’m having trouble with right now,” Pearce said before the game.
The first baseman and World Series MVP returned to the team from a rehab assignment to gather some things and take batting practice with the Red Sox. He said he partially tore his posterior cruciate ligament in his knee and it’s been a grind to get back.
Pearce, 36, said surgery is not an option and he’s hoping treatment will work.
“Right now everything is going the right way,” he said.
If he can return late in the year, even if he can’t run, he might be an option to pinchhit.
“I told him today, ‘if you hit the ball out of the ballpark you won’t have to sprint,’” Cora said. “We saw Kirk Gibson, what he did in the World Series.”
Cora looked up and noticed Dennis Eckersley in the room, then apologized.
“Ah, my bad,” Cora said to Eckersley. “Honestly, my bad. You guys are cool. You threw out the first pitch in the World Series.”
Eckersley famously allowed the Gibson home run in the 1988 World Series, but the two have since reconnected and were together last year for the World Series in Los Angeles.