Red Sox rebuilding rotation without Sale, Price, Rodriguez
Chris Sale is recovering from elbow surgery. David Price was traded. Rick Porcello left as a free agent. Eduardo Rodríguez tested positive for COVID-19.
The Boston Red Sox are scrambling to put their starting rotation back together for the 60-game baseball season, and it won’t look like the one fans might have expected at the end of last year — or even the start of spring training in February.
“Our loss of a couple guys, it makes a big difference,” manager Ron Roenicke said. “Eddie, we know will be back, (it’s) just a question of when. But anytime you lose that many starting pitchers, it’s hard to replace those guys.”
Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, who had success using an opener in Tampa Bay, had already been open-minded about using a reliever to start — even before trading Price and losing Sale to Tommy John surgery this spring.
But now it will be a virtual necessity.
The Red Sox can hope the shortened season and training camp — along with the possibility that a positive COVID-19 test takes a star player out of the lineup — will put less of an emphasis on having a set rotation.
Or, maybe it will become even more important.
“I think the game is humbling enough that we should be careful to think we can know too much,” Bloom told reporters last month. “There are going to be some other things that are different. Given that we haven’t done this before — especially under these circumstances — I don’t think we really know.”
Starting from scratch
With Rodríguez unlikely to be ready for opening day, the rotation looks like Nathan Eovaldi, Martín Pérez, Ryan Weber and Brian Johnson, followed by an opener.
“It’s hard to say that you’d ever feel really comfortable with all the starting pitching that you have,” Roenicke said. “Rarely do you have six, seven, eight starters that you feel great about. And you know you’re not going to just use five guys. That just doesn’t happen in today’s game.”
Rodríguez, 27, was one of the team’s biggest bright spots last season, when the Red Sox missed the playoffs for the first time in four years. He went 19-6 with a 3.81 ERA and struck out 213 batters in 203 1/3 innings to finish sixth in the AL Cy Young balloting.
With Price gone to Los Angeles as part of the Mookie Betts trade and Sale sitting out for Tommy John surgery, Rodríguez was the frontrunner to start opening day. But he has already missed half of the spring training reboot; he is expected to miss the first time through the rotation, at least.
Field promotion
Eovaldi, who made just 12 starts last year because of midseason elbow surgery, has gone from being the projected No. 4 starter to the team’s ace. He was having a strong spring when camps were closed on March 12, pitching eight scoreless innings and striking out 12 over three outings.
Pérez, who signed as a free agent, went 10-7 with a 5.12 ERA for Minnesota last year after spending the first seven years of his career with the Rangers. Weber went 2-4 with a 5.09 ERA in 18 appearances for Boston last year.
After a 2018 season that showed promise (4-5, 4.17 ERA), Johnson was 1-3 with a 6.02 ERA last year and was assigned to Triple-A after clearing waivers in the offseason. He threw three scoreless innings in a scrimmage Sunday, and he said he was motivated by the demotion.
New look
Roenicke, 63, was hired after spring training already started following a shotgun job search to replace Alex Cora, who was let go after Major League Baseball identified him as the ringleader in the Houston Astros’ illegal signstealing scheme.
A former outfielder who was drafted five times, played for six teams and has coached in four organizations, including a stint as Brewers manager from 2011-15, Roenicke might have thought he had seen everything over 40 years spent in professional baseball.
And then the pandemic struck.
“It’s pretty much an audible every day,” Roenicke said. “It’s always adjusting. I think anytime that you have experience and you’ve gone through a lot of things, it makes it simpler to make these decisions.”
Rookies to watch
Bobby Dalbec, a corner infielder who hit .239 with 27 homers and 73 RBIs at Double- and Triple-A last season, would have been at the top of the list of players ready to contribute. But he was shut down for a couple of weeks after testing positive for the coronavirus, so any contribution could be delayed.
NHL leading scorer Leon Draisaitl of the Oilers, Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon and Rangers winger Artemi Panarin were named finalists for the Ted Lindsay Award on Tuesday.
The trophy goes to the league’s most outstanding player as voted by fellow players. None of them have won the award before.
Draisaitl, a big forward from Germany, finished first in points with 110 in 71 games before the season was halted because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He played with and apart from captain Connor McDavid in his career year.
MacKinnon helped injury-ravaged Colorado clinch a top four seed in the Western Conference. The 24-year-old Canadian had 43 more points than his nextclosest Avalanche teammate.
Milwaukee Bucks team members will join other NBA players who plan to put messages for social change on the back of their jerseys once games resume at the end of the month.
Both Kyle Korver and Khris Middleton will substitute “Black Lives Matter” for their names on their jerseys.
“I think it’s the most important thing for people to realize,” Middleton said Monday. “That our lives do matter. That’s why I went with it.”
Reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, his brother, Thanasis, and other players have another plan.
“On the back of my jersey is gonna be ‘Equality,’” Antetokounmpo said. “That’s what we decided, a majority of the team. So that’s what me and Thanasis are going to wear on the back of our jersey.”
Seahawks tight end Greg Olsen told The Associated Press he has agreed to a contract with Fox Sports to become its No. 2 NFL game analyst once he retires from football.
Olsen signed a one-year, $6.9 million contract with the Seahawks earlier this offseason after spending nine seasons with the Panthers.
The New York Post was the first to report the news.
The 35-year-old Olsen will partner with Kevin Burkhardt in the booth as an analyst once the 13-year NFL veteran decides to call it quits. Olsen had previously considered retiring after last season, but decided to play at least one more year with the Seahawks in hopes of teaming with Russell Wilson to win his first Super Bowl ring.