Kuzul

Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Joe Kelly was removed from Tuesday’s start against the Tampa Bay Rays because of a shoulder injury.

Continue for updates. 

Latest on Kelly’s Timetable for Return

Wednesday, April 20

Michael Silverman of the Boston Globe reported there’s no timetable for Kelly’s return after an MRI showed no structural damage.

Kelly Placed On DL After Early Exit; Farrell Comments on Status

Tuesday, April 19

Tim Britton of the Providence Journal reported Kelly will be placed on the 15-day disabled list. 

After the game, Farrell told reporters he expects Kelly to have a full set of tests and added the team could make additional roster moves. 

Inconsistent Kelly Highlights Red Sox’s Weaknesses 

Kelly has struggled so far this season prior to Tuesday. The right-hander has a 10.13 ERA with 14 hits and eight walks allowed in eight innings through his first two starts. 

Rotation depth is not an area of strength for the Red Sox, who entered play with the seventh-worst ERA and eighth-fewest innings pitched from their starters. Kelly’s performance wasn’t helping matters, but his absence will leave another void in a group that’s already missing Eduardo Rodriguez because of a knee injury. 

Stats courtesy of ESPN.com unless otherwise noted.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Clay Buchholz was right about one thing.

It’s far too early in the season to declare the Boston Red Sox are in any kind of trouble.

Buchholz may even have been right about two things, because in his “don’t panic” speech to reporters (including MLB.com‘s Ian Browne) last week, the Boston right-hander also declared the Sox “have the best pitcher in the world right now on our team.”

He wasn’t talking about himself.

The Red Sox do have David Price, and when Price beat the Toronto Blue Jays in an impressive 4-2 win Saturday, the Sox looked like they hoped to look this season. Price’s strong outing followed a very good start by Rick Porcello in a Friday win and preceded a decent start by Steven Wright in a loss to the Blue Jays on Sunday.

Oh, and even with all of that, the Red Sox rotation still owns the second-highest ERA (4.82) in the American League.

Even with Price and Porcello pitching well, they still have the same basic issue that landed them in last place in the AL East in 2015, when the 4.39 rotation ERA ranked 24th in the majors. And the year before, when Boston’s last-place rotation ranked 26th with a 4.36 ERA.

For all of the talk about Hanley Ramirez—who is “completely different” this year, as Red Sox manager John Farrell told Aaron Leibowitz of MLB.com)= on Sunday—it’s still going to come down to the starters.

For all of the questions about Pablo Sandoval—Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe dedicated part of his Sunday notes column to figuring out how the Red Sox can get rid of him—Buchholz and the rest of the rotation are far more crucial to what happens the rest of this season.

They might benefit from the return of catcher Christian Vazquez. The Boston Globe‘s Alex Speier made a nice case for Vazquez’s pitch-framing ability.

Ultimately, though, it’s going to come down to how they pitch. For the Red Sox to win, they’re going to need to prove the concerns raised by rival scouts this spring were overblown, rather than an accurate assessment of the challenges the Sox would face.

So far, they’ve done little to prove it.

Buchholz has started twice, giving up five runs each time and lasting just nine total innings going into his Monday morning Patriots’ Day start against the Blue Jays. Joe Kelly gave up seven runs in his season debut and carries a 10.13 ERA into his start Tuesday against the Tampa Bay Rays.

As one scout said last week about Buchholz, he has a hard time sustaining success and just as hard of a time making it through the season healthy. As for Kelly, the eight walks in eight innings so far this season suggest he might not be able to sustain the improvement he seemed to show late last season.

Porcello is more dependable, at least as far as making his starts and pitching his innings. But he has made 30 starts since the Red Sox traded for him and handed him $82.5 million, and his 4.93 ERA over that span is the third-worst in baseball among pitchers with at least 160 innings.

Wright, meanwhile, is a knuckleballer who is only in the rotation because Eduardo Rodriguez isn’t. Rodriguez got hurt early in spring training and still isn’t close to returning.

If he comes back and pitches anything like he did last season, Rodriguez could give the Red Sox rotation a serious boost. If Porcello can look anything like he did Friday, that would obviously be a big boost, too.

It’s far too early to say none of that will happen. It’s far too early to say there’s no chance the Red Sox starters will get it together.

For now, though, there’s that 4.82 ERA that only serves to confirm the spring concerns. Even with “the best pitcher in the world right now,” the Red Sox look like they have a rotation that’s not close to being good enough.

For now, it looks far too much like it did last year.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Baltimore Orioles outfielder Mark Trumbo slugged a pair of home runs during the seventh inning of Friday’s 11-5 win over the Texas Rangers, becoming just the second player in franchise history to homer twice in the same inning, per Elias Sports Bureau (h/t ESPN Stats & Info).

The only other player to accomplish the feat was Ken Williams, who did so in 1922 when the team was known as the St. Louis Browns.

Trumbo‘s two-run and three-run homers accounted for five of the RBI in a nine-run seventh inning, with the Orioles quickly turning a 5-1 deficit into a 10-5 lead.

Acquired this offseason in a trade with the Seattle Mariners, the 30-year-old slugger is now the first player in Orioles history to hit five home runs in his first 10 games with the team, per Elias Sports Bureau (h/t ESPN Stats & Info).

Trumbo is also the first player to hit two home runs in the same inning of any MLB game since July 26, 2013, when Toronto Blue Jays designated hitter Edwin Encarnacion accomplished the feat, per Sportsnet Stats.

Known for his massive power and equally prodigious strikeout totals, Trumbo also hit five home runs through the first 10 games of a season in 2014 while playing for the Arizona Diamondbacks, per ESPN Stats & Info.

History suggests his current .400 batting average will likely dip well south of .300 sooner rather than later, but for now, the Orioles can largely thank Trumbo for their unexpected 8-2 start and spot at the top of the American League East standings.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Versatile Tampa Bay Rays infielder Logan Forsythe suffered an apparent shoulder injury Friday. However, he’s ready to make his return. 

Continue for updates.

Forsythe in Lineup vs. White Sox

Sunday, April 17

The Rays confirmed Forsythe is batting first and playing second base against Chicago.

Versatile Forsythe Crucial to Rays Offense 

Used largely as a utility player in his first four years, Forsythe had a breakout season with the Rays in 2015. He set career highs in games played (153), doubles (33), home runs (17), batting average (.289), on-base percentage (.359), slugging percentage (.444) and wins above replacement (4.1), per FanGraphs.

Forsythe’s offensive performance was huge for a Rays team that finished 25th in runs scored. Tampa Bay’s lineup doesn’t have the kind of depth that will allow it to win a lot of slugfests. Evan Longoria is still a solid hitter, but his peak is a thing of the past.

The American League East features four of MLB‘s best offenses in the Toronto Blue Jays, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. The Rays, who entered Friday’s game with a 3-6 record, are already off to a slow start, having scored just 24 runs in their first nine games. 

The Rays are going to succeed on the strength of their pitching and defense, but they need their key hitters, including Forsythe, to be at the top of their games.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Kevin Kiermaier suffered an apparent head injury against the Chicago White Sox on Friday. However, he is ready to make his return to the field.

Continue for updates.

Kiermaier in Lineup vs. White Sox

Sunday, April 17

The Rays confirmed Kiermaier is batting eighth and playing center field against the Chicago White Sox.

Kiermaier’s Defense Crucial for Rays 

Kiermaier is in the midst of his third full major league season, and he is off to a slow start so far with a .160/.323/.160 line in nine games entering Friday. Most importantly, though, he is perhaps the best defensive center fielder in baseball.

According to Baseball-Reference.com, the former 31st-round pick ranked first in the American League last season with a Defensive Wins Above Replacement of 5.0. Also, his overall WAR of 7.3 ranked third in the AL despite modest production at the plate.

He hit just .263 with 10 home runs, 40 RBI and 18 stolen bases. Kiermaier’s on-base percentage of .298 was below average as well, which made his high WAR a remarkably rare achievement, per Hardball Stats:

Kiermaier’s offensive struggles caused many to question his true value, but the 25-year-old Indiana native has no doubt that he is an impact performer.

According to Gabe Lacques of USA Today (h/t WTSP 10News), Kiermaier pointed toward an increased emphasis on defense:

People always say, ‘You can’t tell me So-and-So is less valuable than Kiermaier.’ I want to say, go look at some of the video from last year, late in games, when I made a diving catch with runners in scoring position, when I threw a guy out when we were up one in the ninth. We win those games.

I still don’t know how WAR is calculated, but I think, even though I’m not out there hitting 35 home runs and driving in 120 – and those guys are very valuable – I’m a game-changer out there. I’ll let those guys up there working on the computers value that whatever way they want.

If people want to be bitter about where I was ranked, go ahead. The game’s changing. It’s not just about offense anymore.

The Rays have little margin for error since they aren’t a particularly explosive offensive team and they have a lot of question marks in their bullpen.

Kiermaier helps immensely in that regard due to the amount of runs he saves defensively.

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Boston Red Sox third baseman Pablo Sandoval lost his starting job entering the 2016 season due in large part to weight issues, and the two-time All Star’s former trainer attributes it to an eating problem.

According to Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald, trainer Ethan Banning believes the three-time World Series champion needs what amounts to a “babysitter” to prevent him from continuing out-of-control eating habits:

I care about him greatly. But it’s a tough love. He needs to be smart enough to say there’s a problem. It’s like the alcoholic that won’t admit he’s an alcoholic: well, you can’t address that you’re an alcoholic if you don’t ever admit there’s a problem. He’s got to address that.

He’s proven to me and shown consistently that he’s got to have somebody like me holding his hand doing that. And it’s not an exercise thing, it’s an eating thing. Obviously exercise is an important factor in it, a very important factor, but eating is going to be the component that needs to be managed and monitored. We had a chef on staff that cooked all his meals.

Banning trained Sandoval prior to the 2011 and 2012 seasons during his time with the San Francisco Giants and said he helped Kung Fu Panda slim down after gaining 21 pounds in 21 days during a Christmas visit to Venezuela in 2011.

While Banning hasn’t worked with the 29-year-old veteran since 2012, he believes Sandoval will eventually commit to getting back in shape, per Drellich:

I think that he’s embarrassed right now. I think there’s going to come this moment that he’s going to show everybody that this is not who he is. … I don’t know that it’s going to be with me, but he’s going to hire somebody like that. I think he’s likely going to figure it out. But it’s not going to be this season, and likely not with the Red Sox, the way it looks.

Sandoval recently went on the 15-day disabled list with a shoulder injury, but Travis Shaw had supplanted him as the starting third baseman before that.

The Venezuela native hit a disappointing .245 with 10 home runs and 47 RBI for the Red Sox last season, and he doesn’t have a hit thus far in 2016.

It is a significant fall from grace for a player who boasts a career batting average of .287 and is among the winningest players in baseball in terms of playoff success.

Sandoval has been and can be a star-caliber player, but if Banning’s assessment is correct, he will need help to return to that level.  

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

When the Boston Red Sox‘s designated hitter David Ortiz cracked his third home run of the season Tuesday, he pulled within three home runs of Gary Sheffield for 25th on the career home run list, per Baseball-Reference.com.

The 40-year-old has already announced 2016 will serve as his farewell season, but he’s not showing any signs of slowing down. On the season, Ortiz owns a .321/.406/.786 slash line, with his nine RBI placing him eighth on the list after Wednesday’s action. Of the 17 others tied or ahead of him in the category, all but one (Starlin Castro) have played in more games.

Boston has started the season a bit shaky, owning a 3-1 record out of the gate before dropping three of the last four games. Considering the campaign is just eight games old for the Red Sox, it’s definitely not time to declare the sky falling, but the team likely envisioned a better start.

Ortiz will almost assuredly surpass Sheffield this season, barring a long-term injury of some kind. If Ortiz can remain on par with his past couple of years—35 and 37 home runs—the veteran slugger could challenge Mickey Mantle (536 career home runs) for 17th on the all-time list by season’s end.

A well-respected player around the league, Big Papi will likely receive treatment similar to what Derek Jeter got in his 2014 farewell tour. While some of his most memorable moments have come off the field—i.e. his post-Boston Marathon bombing speech—Ortiz has certainly made a name for himself as a pure hitter as well. If the team can turn it around, there’s a good chance he will be at the heart of some more in his last go-around.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The Boston Red Sox will place third baseman Pablo Sandoval on the disabled list after he suffered a left shoulder strain. It is unclear when he will return to the lineup.

Continue for updates.

Sandoval Undergoes MRI 

Friday, April 15

Red Sox general manager Dave Dombrowski said Sandoval has “a lot going on with his shoulder,” per Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe. Dombrowski added Sandoval will see Dr. James Andrews and that surgery is an option.

On Wednesday, Sandoval said he woke up not having any feeling in his arm, which also happened to him in 2011, per Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald.

How Sandoval’s Absence Impacts Red Sox

Rob Bradford of WEEI reported Josh Rutledge will replace Sandoval on the 25-man roster. 

Sandoval, 29, is without a hit in six at-bats this season and lost his starting job to Travis Shaw. 

One of Boston’s major offseason signings prior to the 2015 campaign, Sandoval’s time in Boston has not gone to plan. He hit .245/.292/.366 with 10 home runs and 47 RBI last season while playing perhaps the worst defense of his career. FanGraphs‘ WAR formula graded it as his worst season by far.

“Every year I have to prove something to my teammates, to the fans, to everybody,” Sandoval said in March, per Scott Lauber of ESPN.com. “Why am I going to get mad? We are teammates, we’re playing good. It’s not my decision; it’s not [Shaw’s] decision. We’re going to keep playing and working hard.”

In all likelihood, this is as much a move for Sandoval’s mental health as it is anything. Manager John Farrell categorized it as a chance to “step away from the scrutiny,” per Brian MacPherson of the Providence Journal.

The Red Sox aren’t going to see much impact on their on-field product given they weren’t using Sandoval much as it was.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Nick Swisher has fallen on hard times over the last two years, but the former All-Star is getting another chance to revive his career by returning to the New York Yankees. 

Per Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News, Swisher’s minor league deal with the Yankees is official, and he will report to Triple-A Scranton on Thursday. 

Since playing 145 games for the Cleveland Indians in 2013, Swisher has missed 151 games the past two years due to knee injuries. He was traded to the Atlanta Braves in August, appearing in 46 games and hitting .195/.349/.339. 

Since the Braves have undertaken a massive rebuilding effort, the team released Swisher one week before Opening Day and with $15 million left on his contract.

Atlanta manager Fredi Gonzalez told MLB.com’s Mark Bowman that if Swisher is “with an American League team, he fits. But it would have been tough to get at-bats for him here.”

MLB Network’s Jon Heyman heard something similar from a rival general manager coming out of spring training:

While there is not a lot of recent success at the MLB level for Swisher, there was a time when he was one of the most consistent hitters for years, per Baseball-Reference.com:

There’s an inherent risk the Yankees are taking in signing Swisher, because he has to prove his knees are capable of handling the grind of playing 162 games. The 35-year-old used to be one of MLB’s most durable players, as he appeared in at least 145 games every season from 2006-13. 

However, because the Yankees only gave Swisher a minor league deal, the team can cut bait easily if things don’t work out.

Age has certainly caught up to Swisher, though he was at least healthy enough to play in 17 games during spring training before being released. He’s got to be in a situation that doesn’t ask him to use his legs often, either as a first baseman who gets one day off each week or as a full-time designated hitter. 

The Yankees have plenty of those types of players already with Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Beltran, but Teixeira missed 237 games the previous three seasons, and Beltran didn’t play more than 133 games in either of his first two seasons in New York.

If Swisher is able to stay on the field, he will be able to provide a solid on-base percentage because of his patience in the batter’s box. There won’t be much power because his legs aren’t as strong as they once were, but teams will always take a chance on someone who takes good at-bats and gets on base. 

Swisher’s best seasons came as a member of the Yankees from 2009-12, so it’s no surprise he would hope to revive his career wearing pinstripes. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Some careers end with a bang, while others end with a whimper.

That bang you just heard came off David Ortiz‘s bat.

Six games into his farewell season with the Boston Red Sox, Big Papi looks like the same game-changing slugger Beantown fans have grown to love and worship over the past decade-plus.

Sure, Boston lost 9-5 Tuesday night to the surprising, still-undefeated Baltimore Orioles. But Ortiz kept right on raking, going 2-for-4 with a home run, a double and three RBI.

That raised his average for the young season to .346, to go along with three homers, nine RBI and a gaudy 1.239 OPS.

Oh, it’s April. We’re squarely in the realm of small samples. Colorado Rockies rookie Trevor Story probably won’t eclipse 200 home runs, for example, despite his current pace. 

Ortiz, however, isn’t some untested kid on an unsustainable hot streak.

He’s one of the best power hitters of his generation, doing the things he’s always done. The things we’ve come to take for granted.

Yes, he turned 40 in November. Yes, Father Time bats 1.000. But right now, Papi looks like a man who can defy the date on his driver’s license—and the odds.

If anything, he’s aging like a fine wine.

Last year, Ortiz clubbed 37 home runs—his highest total since 2006. And he’s eclipsed 30 homers and 100 RBI in each of the last three campaigns. 

The end can come abruptly and at any time, as FanGraphs’ Jeff Sullivan outlined:

Through 39, David Ortiz hasn’t changed very much. He’s protected much of his game from the usual consequences of age, and for that reason, we should expect that 40 will bring its own share of glorious moments. Of course, you can seldom really tell when a player is on the verge of collapse. Edgar Martinez held up through 40 before coming apart at 41. It’s a thin line between successful and unproductive.

Additionally, the 162-game grind is long, even for a designated hitter. Injury or a protracted slump could swiftly derail Ortiz’s swan song.

This game isn’t a cake walk, as Ortiz himself has admitted.

“He always had a smile on his face, but with a real recognition that the game doesn’t come easy to him, either,” former Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein said recently, per Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post. “You sit down and talk to him, and you’ll hear, ‘Hitting is hard, bro. Hitting is hard.’ He really had to work at it, and he’s a self-made man in a lot of ways.”

That work ethic helped bring a trio of championships to a perennially cursed franchise. Now, on the heels of two consecutive last-place finishes, can Ortiz return the Red Sox to postseason glory one last time?

The American League East is a balanced division, with flawed-yet-dangerous contenders top to bottom. An array of factors—the back of the starting rotation, the emergence of young hitters—will help determine Boston’s fate.

But Big Papi can play his part. He can keep raking and possibly guide his team on one more October run.

If he doesn’t, his goodbye tour will still make headlines and evoke emotions. We already got one misty-eyed moment when his 15-year-old daughter, Alex, sang the national anthem at the Red Sox’s home opener Monday.

“I was nervous,” the elder Ortiz said of the surprise performance, per MLB.com’s Ian Browne. “I was dying. It wasn’t even about me. It was about her.”

Big Papi’s final go-round, on the other hand, is about him. Sure, it’d be extra special if the Red Sox hoisted another trophy. And no, a stellar final stat line from Ortiz wouldn’t erase the sting of another losing season.

But this is his grand exit no matter what—assuming he doesn’t change his mind and return for 2017.

So far, he appears determined to end with a bang. 

All statistics current as of April 12 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com