Wednesday, March 29, 2006

DelCarmen and Hansen moved to Triple-A

Craig Hansen and Manny Delcarment were sent back down to Triple-A last night before the game. Francona expects Hansen to do more than just close games in the minors, though:
"The more the ball’s in his hands, the better he’s going to get," Francona said. . . .

With that move (and I expect Choi who was picked up off of waivers to be moved to Triple-A as well), that settles the Red Sox line-up. David Wells will start on the DL, but will come back around April 12th when he's expected to become the fifth man in the rotation. That leaves Schilling, Beckett, Wakefield, and Clement as your four starters. Foulke is expected to close, with Mike Timlin, Jonathan Papelbon, Julian Tavarez, David Riske, Rudy Seanez and Lenny Dinardo filling the set up roles.

With Tavarez likely suspension in the offing, I expect he will appeal until Wells is ready to come off the DL. When that happens, Tavarez will probably (gracefully?) accept his suspension, leaving a roster spot open for DiNardo to fill.

It also seems that Bard has taken Mirabelli's spot and will be catching Wakefield's knuckleball. Good luck to him.

I don't think there's any other controversial spots to fill. Except for seeing how Lowell does, the line-up has been set for some time. But with reports of Lowell's bat speed suffering, the pick up of Choi as a back up 1B shouldn't be a surprise.

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