Red Sox Add Pitcher Zack Kelly, Catcher Ali Sánchez To Active Roster

A s***** third catcher and a useless reliever? Awesome! 

The third catcher is just emergency insurance, it enables Cora to do something like use Narvaez as a pinch-hitter - like he did yesterday, very successfully I might add.

Kelly is a mystery.  Andrew Bailey must think there's something there he can fix.

2 hours ago, notin said:

Having a third catcher makes sense.  I’m not wild about Kelly.  But what were the other options?

Pitchers Criswell, Guerrero, Winckowski, Crawford, and Fitts are all injured.  Harrison has reportedly been learning a new pitch plus a new grip for a second pitch, so he’s not available.  I think Moran’s demotion was too recent to call him back up. 
 

That leaves Kelly, Murphy, and Isaiah Campbell.

If they didn’t want another left-handed pitcher, then the choices were Kelly and Campbell…

Wonder why they've hoarded so many lefties in the pen? 

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

This what happens when you have 8 pitchers on the IL:

Houck, Crawford, Sandoval, Dobbins, Fitts, Criswell, Hendriks & Guerrero.

It's hard to plan 9-10 deep and have something useful.

Also, between Kelly, Campbell, Murphy and Moran, I kinda expected in March, that one might be decent.

Crawford, Sandoval and Hendriks were known injury risks going into the season. Sox are also building up a Dodgers-esque resumé of sending arms to the IL both in MLB and MiLB with the new pitching philosophy. 

12 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Not sure they foresaw this, but...

Our LHPs vs RHBs OPS Against:

.282 Matz

.360 Chapman

.589 Bernardino

.592 Murphy

(Wilson .843 is the outlier.)

 

Matz's OPS was a lot higher vs RHB before he was traded. I think there is some SSS luck involved. 

Chapman's career splits aren't horrible. Murphy didn't show a split back in '23 so it may not be a concern for him. 

1 minute ago, moonslav59 said:

Good point.

We haven't really been burned by RHB vs our lefty pen guys.

Breslow's career split as a LHP: