{"id":87654,"date":"2025-08-22T02:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T02:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/87654\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T02:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T02:23:07","slug":"red-sox-weighing-bullpen-move-for-walker-buehler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/87654\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox Weighing Bullpen Move For Walker Buehler"},"content":{"rendered":"

A disappointing season for Red Sox\u2019s righty\u00a0Walker Buehler<\/a> continued on Tuesday. He only completed four innings while allowing four hits and as many walks in a home loss to the Orioles. It was the fourth time in his past five outings that Buehler issued at least three free passes, and his season earned run average is up to 5.40 across 22 starts.<\/p>\n

Asked this evening whether Buehler would make his scheduled start on Monday, manager Alex Cora said the team \u201c(hasn\u2019t) talked about it yet\u201d (via Tim Healey of The Boston Globe<\/a>). While Cora wasn\u2019t interested in discussing the situation publicly, Chris Cotillo of MassLive<\/a> reports that the Sox are having internal conversations about moving Buehler to the bullpen. It\u2019s not out of the question that he pitches in relief at some point during this weekend\u2019s series against the Yankees. That\u2019d obviously rule him out of starting Monday in what would be a rematch against Baltimore.<\/p>\n

Buehler hasn\u2019t been anywhere near as effective as hoped. The Sox signed him to a one-year, $21.05MM free agent deal that matched the price of the qualifying offer that he didn\u2019t receive from the Dodgers. Buehler had a very poor regular season in 2024 (5.38 ERA in 16 starts) but hit the market with positive buzz after closing out the World Series. That convinced the Sox he was a solid upside play, but Buehler\u2019s numbers this year are even worse than those of the 2024 regular season.<\/p>\n

The righty has a career-low 16.5% strikeout rate and has gotten whiffs on just 7.7% of his pitches. The recent command woes have pushed his walk rate north of 10% for the first time in his career (outside of a 2017 debut in which he pitched fewer than 10 innings). Buehler carried a 6.12 ERA into the All-Star Break. While he has managed a serviceable 3.66 mark in the second half, he has walked as many batters as he has struck out over his past six starts.<\/p>\n

Boston recalled former fifth starter\u00a0Richard Fitts<\/a> from Triple-A Worcester this afternoon. Cora said that Fitts, who has started all 17 appearances between MLB and the upper minors, will be available out of the bullpen. Fitts averaged only four innings per start while posting a near-5.00 ERA in the big leagues. The Sox pushed him out of the rotation when they acquired Dustin May<\/a> at the deadline. They could reverse course and have him start on Monday.<\/p>\n

Boston could also use both Buehler and Fitts in relief and recall one of Kyle Harrison<\/a> or\u00a0Cooper Criswell<\/a> to work as the fifth starter. Harrison has made 10 Triple-A starts since being acquired in the\u00a0Rafael Devers<\/a> deal. He has a solid 3.69 ERA but has walked 12% of batters faced while averaging fewer than five innings per start with Worcester. Criswell has a 3.70 mark in 65 2\/3 frames over 16 Triple-A outings.<\/p>\n

If the Sox do pull Buehler from the rotation, it\u2019d impact him financially. He has already picked up $1MM in bonuses by reaching 20 and 22 starts. He\u2019d unlock another $500K each at 24, 26, and 28 starts. He\u2019ll be a free agent next offseason when the Sox decline their end of a mutual option in favor of a $3MM buyout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A disappointing season for Red Sox\u2019s righty\u00a0Walker Buehler continued on Tuesday. He only completed four innings while allowing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,51886,82,37106],"class_list":["post-87654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-richard-fitts","tag-sports","tag-walker-buehler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}