BOSTON — You might think the Red Sox would be reeling from the loss of reliever Carson Smith to Tommy John surgery, but that certainly wasn’t the case Tuesday.
However, that’s not because the club doesn’t consider Smith to be an important piece of their bullpen — both president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and manager John Farrell expressed their disappointment in the news. But rather, it’s a testament to how much they believe in the guys they have now.
“We’re going to miss (Smith),” Farrell said before Tuesday’s game against the Colorado Rockies. “He was an acquisition this winter, as we know, that was likely to play a pivotal role, particularly against tough right-handed hitters in our division, but in light of his absence, I really like our bullpen. We’ve had depth emerge with (Heath) Hembree and (Matt) Barnes, and we’re able, I think, to distribute the workload evenly to still protect (Junichi Tazawa) and Koji (Uehara).”
And really, Boston’s bullpen hasn’t given the Red Sox much reason to worry. Smith made just three appearances with the major league club, but Boston’s relievers still are in the top 10 in Major League Baseball in ERA (eighth) and strikeouts (seventh) at 3.12 with 152 K’s. And that’s why Dombrowski said the team’s not anywhere close to considering a trade to bolster its bullpen depth.
“It comes up, but the reality is, there’s not much of that talk yet,” Dombrowski said Tuesday. “I think they really kind of wait until usually in July when that picks up. If something would happen more so, I guess we’d be more aggressive, but right now, the way Barnes and Hembree have pitched, along with (Robbie) Ross and (Tommy) Layne, we feel pretty good about our bullpen right now.”
But despite their faith in their current situation, both Dombrowski and Farrell acknowledged they feel the worst for Smith himself.
“I’m first of all concerned and disappointed for him,” Dombrowski said. “I saw him Friday, and you could tell when he got the news how he felt. It crushed him. He wasn’t anticipating this whatsoever because he was pushing to come back from March. We were trying to slow him down. …
“For the club, he’s a very good pitcher, so when you lose a guy like that, it hurts. You also know that during the season, I don’t think I’ve ever gone through a year no matter when it has been, where you don’t get hit at some point by some type of injury, and so it’s very unfortunate.”
Thumbnail photo via Steve Mitchell/USA TODAY Sports Images
