Boston Red Sox closer Craig Kimbrel has been placed on the 15-day disabled list and will undergo surgery on his left knee, according to WEEI.com’s Ryan Hannable.
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Kimbrel Out 3-6 Weeks
Saturday, July 9
Kimbrel was ruled out Friday due to knee soreness, per the Boston Globe‘s Alex Speier. An MRI revealed the right-hander has a torn medial meniscus, according to MLB Roster Moves.
On Friday, the Red Sox announced they had acquired reliever Brad Ziegler from the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for two minor-league players.
Ziegler has never been a hard thrower, and at 36 years old, he isn’t going to blow batters away consistently. But he has the repertoire necessary to hold down the fort while Kimbrel is on the shelf.
Not only do right-handed batters hit just .224 off Ziegler, but his changeup is notoriously difficult to make contact with.
According to FanGraphs’ August Fagerstrom, Ziegler’s changeup “was the hardest pitch in all of baseball to lay off last year” because it spun out of the zone 85 percent of the time. Remarkably, opposing batters swung at those offerings 54 percent of the time.
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