Boston Red Sox News and Notes: Team Makes Additions for Playoff Push

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Although the Boston Red Sox have lost many of their recent games, the team has made moves to try to salvage the rest of their season and make the playoffs. While they spent the majority of the first half of the season leading the American League East division, they have since fallen to third place. The Red Sox are implementing strategies to help them have a successful end to the season, including adding Chris Sale and Kyle Schwarber to the roster, moving Garrett Richards and Martín Pérez to the bullpen, and signing Travis Shaw.

Chris Sale had his first major league start on Saturday against the Baltimore Orioles after an injury and Tommy John surgery prevented him from playing since 2019. In his first game back, he had eight strikeouts in five innings. He gave up two runs from home runs, but the Red Sox ended up winning by 14 runs. Newly acquired outfielder Kyle Schwarber also played his first game with the Red Sox in their series against the Orioles. He walked twice and scored twice, but his first hits came two games later in the same series when he hit two doubles. Additionally, although the Red Sox did not make many changes before the trade deadline, they recently signed Travis Shaw after he was released from Milwaukee. New faces on the field gave fans hope that they could start winning more games as they did earlier in the season.

In an attempt to improve their pitching, the Red Sox also moved two of their starters, Garrett Richards and Martín Pérez, to the bullpen to make room for Sale and Tanner Houck, who was just called up from the minor leagues. After giving up multiple runs in their recent starts, Richards and Pérez now join the relief pitchers. They both had successful first outings as bullpen pitchers. Pérez pitched one scoreless inning and Richards pitched three. In the last game of the series against the Yankees on Wednesday, Richards pitched four more scoreless innings.

These changes looked promising in their series against the Orioles. The Red Sox won all three games, giving up only five runs combined, and scoring a total of 30 runs. Although the Orioles have the worst record in the American League, it looks like fans could be cautiously optimistic, as it seemed the team was starting to perform as they had earlier in the season. However, their series against the New York Yankees was a letdown after they lost all three games.

Although the Boston Red Sox have lost 14 of their last 20 games, they are still a contender for the wildcard spot in the playoffs. With around 40 games left to play, they still have time to recover and save their season.