Pawtucket Red Sox Add Brandon Phillips To Roster In A Flurry Of Roster Moves

The Pawtucket Red Sox have officially added Brandon Phillips to their official roster. He has been with the Lowell Spinners since he signed with the Red Sox organization. With the Lowell Spinners, Philips hit .318 in 6 games while hitting 1 home run and 7 RBI’s. Phillips has spent a majority of his 16 years as a major league ball player with the Cincinnati Reds before playing the 2017 season with the Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Angles.

In 1893 major league games, Phillips has hit well, posting a .275 batting average while connecting for 210 career home homes and 949 RBI’s. Phillips also spent 4 seasons with the Cleveland Indians. Phillips will be batting third for the Paw Sox on Saturday night as the designated hitter.

Trevor Kelley Added

The Paw Sox added RHP Trevor Kelley from AA Portland this morning as well. Kelley did pitch in 2 games for the Paw Sox earlier this season while he had 3 and 1/3 scoreless innings for the team. In 2018, he has posted a 3.60 ERA in 30 innings. This is between AA Portland Sea Dogs and AAA Pawtucket Red Sox.

Other Transactions

The Paw Sox have activated infielder Ivan De Jesus Jr. off of the temporary inactive list. He was placed on the list on July 11th.

The Red Sox bullpen carousel also continued this morning as the major league team recalled Bobby Poyner from AAA Pawtucket. To make room for Poyner in Boston, the Red Sox optioned Robby Scott back down to AAA Pawtucket. Scott pitched in two innings for the Red Sox on Friday night while throwing 37 pitches. Due to that heavy workload, Scott was probably not going to be available on Saturday for the Red Sox and it gives the Red Sox flexibility out of their bullpen.

In total, the Paw Sox have had 14 player transactions in the last three days.

Boston Red Sox Call Up Sam Travis, Witte Back In Pawtucket And A 2018 Draft Pick Already In AAA Pawtucket

On Friday the Boston Red Sox placed outfielder Andrew Benintendi on the bereavement list, the corresponding move was recalling Sam Travis from the Pawtucket Red Sox.

Travis has batted .224 in 205 at-bats this season for the Pawtucket Red Sox.

This is the 24-year-old’s second recall of the 2018 season with the first-base/left fielder batting .167 in 12 at-bats across 4 games for Boston this season.

For Pawtucket they needed to call in the reserves to help fill their roster out with infielder Jantzen Witte being transferred back to Pawtucket from Double-A Portland and then infielder Jonathan Ortega being transferred all the way from Single-A Lowell.

The 28-year-old Witte has appeared in 193 games with Pawtucket over the course of the last two seasons with the infielder spending the entirety of the 2017 season with the PawSox. Witte has a career .249 batting average in Triple-A and can play first, second, third, and left field if needed.

As for Ortega, the 21-year-old was drafted by Boston in the 19th round of the 2018 MLB draft and has 16 games played in his professional career all coming with Lowell. The Texas native has batted .326 in 43 at-bats and can played second, short, and third base.

Pawtucket will take on the Syracuse Chiefs on Friday night with Tommy Milone taking on Boston’s rehabbing Drew Pomeranz.

Red Sox Talk: Next Man Up Mentality From The Pawtucket Red Sox

Every season there is always a flurry of roster moves between the Boston Red Sox and the Triple-A Pawtucket Red Sox. This is the nature of any big league club and their top minor league affiliate. Lately the roster moves have ticked up a bit, on Thursday, Rafael Devers was placed on the DL and Tzu-Wei Lin was recalled.

This move is just one of many that have taken place since the start of the 2018 season. So far as of July 12th, 10 different PawSox players have at one time this season been promoted to Boston.

The list in order is Lin, Marcus Walden, Bobby Poyner, Sam Travis, Brandon Workman, Jalen Beeks, Justin Haley, Robby Scott, William Cuevas, and Ryan Brasier. As of July 12th, Lin, Beeks, Workman, and Brasier are on Boston’s roster.

So the question that everyone wants answered is who is the next man up from Pawtucket that hasn’t already been called up at some point.

There are several options, many of which will likely take place at some point and are more likely to all appear in a Boston Red Sox uniform during the September call-ups.

• Ty Buttrey (On 40-man, hard throwing reliever)
• Williams Jerez (On 40-man)
• Chandler Shepherd (On 40-man, reliever turned starter)

As for positional players, there are none currently in Pawtucket that are on the 40-man roster outside of Sam Travis. However, there are several non-40 man options.

• Adam Lind (MLB hitter)
• Dan Butler (Catcher)
• Rusney Castillo (Unlikely call-up due to cap space)

There are of course other options if players get hot or a need for another infielder is called for and that could be a player like Mike Miller or Ivan De Jesus Jr.

In terms of who I think is the actual next man up, for a starter that hasn’t been called upon before it is Shepherd, reliever it is Buttrey. As for a hitter it is clearly Lind, but a catcher is Butler or even Mike Ohlman.

Boston will likely use Cuevas, Scott, and the other call-ups from earlier on in the season before the other pitching options which is certainly worth noting.