Scott Atchison has been one of the few bright spots for the Red Sox this month, as unlikely as that is. But in a slide that has seen almost everything go wrong, even Atchison has now been dealt a bad hand.
Atchison was removed from Sunday afternoon's loss to the Yankees after throwing a warm-up pitch prior to the eighth inning. He had already tossed 1 1/3 scoreless innings, helping to keep Boston within four runs.
"He's OK," manager Terry Francona said. "He tweaked that groin. He's day to day. It's not bad but we couldn't leave him out there."
Atchison was used for 2 1/3 innings (26 pitches) in Saturday's loss. He also threw 2 1/3 scoreless innings against Baltimore on Tuesday and has not allowed a run in his last 10 1/3 innings overall, a welcome development for a bullpen that's been used to degrees that nobody ever imagined.
"Everybody's running pretty thin at this point. It's late in the year and everything so I can't really attribute it to one thing," he said. "Hope it's nothing too bad and we caught it before we did something bad."
