Report: Red Sox re-sign Carson Smith to minor-league deal
It appears that the Boston Red Sox are going to give Carson Smith another chance.
Despite the fact that Smith has pitched just 23.2 innings in his three seasons with the Red Sox, the team and the 29-year-old agreed on a minor-league deal that includes a spring training invite, according to MassLive.com.
Smith’s 2018 season, of course, was ended by way of a tantrum thrown by the righty reliever, one which also saw him throw out his own shoulder. In addition to joining a long list of goofy injuries in Boston sports history, it was a season-ending injury Smith somehow tried to blame on first-year Red Sox manager Alex Cora, citing overuse.
The argument seemed largely flawed from the start, especially as Smith ranked near the bottom of the Boston bullpen in terms of usage to that point, and it was something Cora disputed and discredited with relative ease.
“I don’t agree with it,” Cora said back then when alerted of Smith’s fatigue excuse following the injury. “On a daily basis, we talk to pitchers and see how they feel. If they don’t feel that they can pitch that day, we stay away from them. [Smith’s comment] caught me by surprise. If he felt that way, he should have talked to us.”
In addition to Cora’s verbal smackdown, it appeared that Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski was none too happy with the 6-foot-5 hurler, and appeared set to move on from him at the beginning of the offseason.
But with the Red Sox having already lost Joe Kelly in free agency, and with Craig Kimbrel still unsigned in a quiet market, Dombrowski and Co. appear content with taking another low-risk, high-reward gamble with Smith.
Smith, who has a 1-1 record, 2.66 ERA, and 27 strikeouts in his three-year run with Boston, will look to once again regain the form and health that guided him to a career-best 2015 season with the Mariners.
