It’s the question everyone is asking about the Red Sox ahead of the 2019 Major League Baseball season: who will be Boston’s closing pitcher?
It’s “extremely unlikely” Craig Kimbrel — who still is on the open market — re-signs with the team. Matt Barnes and Ryan Brasier likely are the top two candidates to take over the role, but if you want clear-cut answers from Alex Cora, you won’t get them.
The Red Sox manager offered insight to the team’s plans for closing games going forward, but didn’t exactly offer much information as to who will be on the mound come the eighth or ninth inning.
“It’s just a matter of, see what we’re going to do as an organization,” Cora said, via The Athletic’s Chad Jennings. “What plan we’re going to do, how comfortable are we with a closer or mixing it up? … Like I’ve been saying all along, we have people that are going to get people out late in games. We’ve just got to make sure everyone is healthy and ready to go for (Opening Day) March 28. If that’s the case, we’ll go one way or another, but I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do.”
The Red Sox’s bullpen features Barnes, Brasier, Brian Johnson, Steven Wright and Hector Velazquez, to name a few, so Cora certainly has his options. Whether he names a closer or attacks the role by committee remains to be seen, but we soon will find out with the season getting underway March 28.
