The Boston Red Sox are looking a little different now than they did just a few days ago.
After playing the wait-and-see game for a few months, the Red Sox roster got a little shakeup over the last two days, with Eduardo Nunez getting designated for assignment and Hector Velazquez getting optioned to Triple-A on Monday. Then on Tuesday, Ryan Brasier was sent to Pawtucket while Darwinzon Hernandez got called up.
Nunez, Velazquez and Brasier all played big parts in the success of the 2018 Red Sox, but inconsistent and underwhelming performances really left president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski with little choice.
Ahead of Tuesday’s loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, Dombrowski discussed the slew of moves with NESN’s Tom Caron.
“They’re tough, they are tough decisions because you are in a position where you feel — first of all, (Nunez is) a good person,” Dombrowski said, as seen on NESN’s pregame coverage. “Secondly, he helped us win. And he’s been part of an organization now for a couple of years. So any time you make those types of decisions it’s not easy, but ultimately it gets down to you have to sort of separate yourself, your personnel and your likes for somebody (and consider the) production perspective. Every game is important to try and win, and for us, unfortunately, Eduardo just wasn’t having a good year from an offensive perspective. And it’s not unlike a decision today with Ryan Brasier to option him out, because he pitched great for us last year. This year he’s been good at times but not consistent, we need the consistency out of him. You had to make a move at this particular time, we thought Darwinzon’s throwing very well, get a second hard-throwing left-hander out there, we had to make a move of some sort and that’s the move we decided to make.
“I think it’s more of a byproduct, you’re not doing it for that reason, we’re not making moves to say, ‘Oh let’s try to wake everybody up,’ because I think people realize that we need to win, I think the reality is that,” Dombrowski later said. “Unfortunately, sometimes now you make these moves because you have to quit waiting at some time, you have to say, ‘OK I can’t wait any longer for this guy.’ And some of them are of necessity. Velazquez pitched three days in a row, just like Brasier pitched in a row, we need to make a move, they haven’t been great, but we had to get a pitcher on the staff and we’re in a position where we couldn’t be patient anymore. So, I think it’s more of a byproduct, but it’s also a reality to all of us that we need to start winning games.”
The Red Sox are in the midst of a lengthy stretch of playing solely division opponents, so as Dombrowski alludes to, suffice to say it’s pretty important they start winning games.
