Oh boy. After leaving last night’s game with elbow discomfort, Connelly Early has officially been placed on the 15-day IL with elbow inflammation. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but the team is downplaying it for now. “I’m personally not too concerned as of right now,” Early said last night, while Chad Tracy described it as a hyperextension. I suppose we should take them at their word for now, but as soon as you start talking about a pitcher’s elbow it’s already bad news. (Avery Hill, Boston
Globe)
Usually a young pitcher leaving a game with elbow discomfort is the biggest story to come out of any given game. But that wasn’t the case last night, when a fight broke out after Nationals pitcher Cade Cavalli made what anyone with any sentience could recognize as a racist comment towards Willson Contreras. Not only did Cavalli somehow escape any in-game discipline while Contreras was ejected, but Contreras is now also under investigation by the league for social media comments he subsequently made. (Chris Cotillo, MassLive)
A Contreras suspension would deal a big blow to the Sox’ infield depth, which has already been decimated by injuries to Marcelo Mayer and Trevor Story. The Sox made a minor trade yesterday to try to shore-up that depth, acquiring the recently DFA’d Brett Harris from the Athletics in exchange for minor league pitcher Ben Hansen. Harris has a career .193 average with 3 homers. (Chris Cotillo, MassLive)
Could we be talking about Franklin Arias as a possibility in the infield soon? AAA promotion watch is on for Arias, who has played 73 games in AA — fewer games than even Roman Anthony got down there, but more than Kristian Campbell. “Part of this game is to be patient,” Arias said. “Moving up to Triple-A, those type of decisions, I can’t control. The one thing I can control is what are my intentions daily, and it’s just to improve across all facets of the game.” (Alex Speier, Boston Globe)
But Arias will be playing on a big league diamond soon. That’s because he was just selected for the Future’s Game, along with pitcher Anthony Eyanson. (Keith Law, The Athletic)
