|
BOSTON -- With one week until the trade deadline, the Boston Red Sox’s idea of relief was seeing closer Craig Kimbrel throw 25 pitches off a mound only two weeks after undergoing minor surgery on his left knee. It was such an encouraging sight, in fact, that president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski all but called off the search for bullpen help. "I think our bullpen will be fine," Dombrowski said Monday before the Red Sox opened a three-game series against his former team, the Detroit Tigers, at Fenway Park. "I know people keep saying we've got to add somebody, but they forget we're getting Kimbrel back and that we just got [Junichi] Tazawa back. We've been able to add to our bullpen." Of course, that doesn't mean the Red Sox still won't keep adding, regardless of what Dombrowski says.  When the season began, the Sox were relying on Kimbrel, Koji Uehara, Tazawa and Carson Smith as their primary late-inning relievers. But while Tazawa (sore shoulder) came off the disabled list last week, Kimbrel might rejoin the team as early as next week, and recently acquired submarine right-hander Brad Ziegler essentially replaced Smith, who was lost in May to Tommy John elbow surgery, there's still the matter of 41-year-old Uehara being sidelined indefinitely by a strained right pectoral. Dombrowski and manager John Farrell have ominously labeled the injury "unusual" because shoulder problems are more common for pitchers than pectoral issues. Dombrowski referenced Tigers starter Anibal Sanchez as one of the rare cases. Sanchez missed seven weeks during the second half of the 2014 season with a pectoral strain. "Every injury is different," Dombrowski said. "We can't find a lot of track record or history with this one, so I do not have any idea [when Uehara will return]. I know he'll be out 15 days, but I can't tell you if it's going to be soon after that or long after that. I think if we get him back, for sure, it's a plus." Clearly, then, the Red Sox aren't counting on Uehara. And while Matt Barnes has emerged as a more trusted option for high-leverage situations, there's still room to add another reliever to the mix, especially since there are more relievers than starters on the trade market. At least publicly, though, Dombrowski insists the Red Sox aren't feeling any desperation to make a move, even for a starting pitcher and even though they have a farm system fertile enough to acquire almost any player they want. In fact, he said he received five trade proposals Monday, none of which he deemed particularly enticing. Dombrowski said the demand for pitching continues to outweigh the supply, a dynamic that might and often does change as the deadline draws closer and buyers suddenly turn into sellers. He pointed to last season when he was in charge of a Tigers team that didn't decide to sell until a few days before the deadline. "Generally, three or four days beforehand, maybe," Dombrowski said. "It's an interesting situation. Look how the marketplace changed last year when I was with the Tigers. We switched at the time -- we're not making a commitment to move players, and then we did -- and all of a sudden, David Price, outfielder [Yoenis] Cespedes and [reliever Joakim] Soria are out there. They're three of the best players. That could happen this year, too. "If you wait, I remember last year at the very end, I'm not going to say who, but I remember there were a couple clubs that were looking for [a big return], and on July 31, they were calling around and saying, 'Would you take this guy?' I think it's a fun time. It's something we really need to keep abreast of, and our people do a good job of that."
|
