Red Sox shortstop prospect Jose Iglesias is out of the lineup for Triple-A Pawtucket for the third straight game on Tuesday night in Gwinnett, Ga. Iglesias was pulled due after the fourth inning of Saturday’s game in Pawtucket for what PawSox manager Gary DiSarcina described to reporters as a “manager’s decision,” and he suggested that the decision for him not to play on Sunday was made for the same reason, with no physical ailment limiting the shortstop.

Red Sox manager John Farrell was asked about the decision not to play Iglesias.

“Just in the reports from the Triple-A staff, we felt it was best he needed a couple of days to regroup. Kind of get back to what has allowed him to be a very good player and experience success,” said Farrell. “He’s dealing with some things.”

On the year, Iglesias (who was 9-for-20 with two doubles in six big league games to open the year) is now hitting .235/.278/.397 in Triple-A. He hasn’t walked in 15 games.

Allen Webster

The Red Sox called up righty Allen Webster from Triple-A Pawtucket on Tuesday, and the 23-year-old will start Wednesday against the Twins. In addition, the team announced that reliever Joel Hanrahan will be placed on the disabled list for the second time this season. Left-hander Felix Doubront, who had been scheduled to start on Wednesday, will head to the bullpen for this turn of the rotation.

In one previous start this season at the major-league level (on April 21) Webster tossed six innings of five-hit baseball in a 5-4 loss to the Royals. Webster is 1-0 with a 2.70 ERA (6 ER/20.0 IP) in four starts for the PawSox this year, compiling 26 strikeouts compared to six walks while holding opponents to a .171 average (12-for-70).

“I’ve been here before and had a game under my belt. Ready to see how it goes,” Webster said of his second call-up, which he received at about 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning, with the PawSox in Gwinnett, Ga. “Now it’s just to go out there and do the best I can to help us win.”

For Hanrahan, this marks his second stint on the disabled list this season after missing 15 games last month because of a right hamstring strain. The 31-year-old has made three appearances since coming off the disabled list on April 30, allowing two runs over 2.2 innings of work.  He collected his 100th career save with a scoreless ninth inning in Toronto on May 2. Hanrahan is 0-1 with four saves, a 9.82 ERA (8 ER/7.1 IP), and five strikeouts over nine relief outings for the Red Sox overall in 2013, his first season with the club.

Hanrahan was diagnosed with inflammation and a strain in his right forearm. He will need a period of rest and re-evaluation before a timetable can be put on his return. Farrell said that the elbow ligament did not appear to be at issue, and that the reliever is instead dealing with a flexor mass issue.

“Everything shows that the structure of the ligament is not involved in this situation. It’s in that flexor mass, probably at some point where the tendon and the muscle join. So, that’s the area that we’re dealing with right now, that Joel’s dealing with,” said Farrell, who suggested that this issue is unrelated to his prior stint on the DL with a sore hamstring. “Want to be careful not to put a timeframe out there and then he’s quicker than it or longer than it. Then it becomes a story in and of itself. Right now, it’s confirmed — he’s got a strain to the right forearm. When we say there’s going to be a shutdown period, we have to go on, I’m sure at some point there ail be a re-exam or a re-MRI of the right forearm, but at this point, he’s in a shutdown period.” Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a look at the lineup for the Red Sox’ Tuesday night game against the Twins:

Jacoby Ellsbury CF
Shane Victorino RF
Dustin Pedroia 2B
David Ortiz DH
Mike Napoli 1B
Jonny Gomes LF
Will Middlebrooks 3B
Stephen Drew SS
David Ross, C
Ryan Dempster, P

For a complete look at the matchups, click here.

Junichi Tazawa

Speaking on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM Tuesday, Red Sox manager John Farrell said with both Andrew Bailey (biceps) and Joel Hanrahan (forearm) out due to injury, Junichi Tazawa would step in as the team’s closer.

“I think what we’d love to do is close [Junichi] Tazawa,” Farrell said. “We’d keep Koji [Uehara] in that eighth inning role that he’s been in. We just got [Craig] Breslow back to us yesterday and before the game we put [Andrew] Bailey on the disabled list who had done a great job in the closing role as well. So fortunately we do have some depth to turn to internally and we know that we’ve got to get through these next couple of days to kind of regroup, because [we had] a couple of extra-inning games, we were in some tight games down in Texas, we have a starter check out early in the game where we’ve had to use the bullpen.  So we’re kind of breathing a little thin ice down there right now and just trying to manage the best we can to get through these next couple of days to regroup.”

Asked why the choice was Tazawa instead of Uehara, Farrell said, “Well, the one thing I like about Koji is, typically, if you’re going to get those pinch hit left-handers in the eighth inning, he’s so effective against lefties.  And you can point to a few guys around the league that are right-handers that are so effective against lefties, and Peralta down in Tampa is another one, Koji is obviously one for us.  I think that’s where you might get a little bit of that gamesmanship or the matchup capability in that eighth inning.  Both of them are very good strike throwers.  They have very good command of their fastball, they’ve got a good secondary pitch, they control the running game, both of them, very effectively.  Tazawa has a little bit more fastball which, whether I’m siding to the traditional approach with a little bit more power late in the game, that’s there.  So, right now that’s the initial approach that we’d take to closing things out.”

Tazawa has pitched in a team-high 16 games this season, totaling a 2.51 ERA with opponents hitting .216 against the righty. (Uehara had an identical .216 opponents batting average in 15 appearances.)

To listen to the entire interview, click here.

Matt Barnes logged six shutout innings for Double-A Portland on Monday. (Darrell Snow / Greenville Drive)

A brief look at the action in the Red Sox farm system on Monday:

TRIPLE-A PAWTUCKET RED SOX: 5-1 WIN AT GWINNETT (BRAVES)

(BOX)

– Right-hander Rubby De La Rosa had his best outing of the year, logging four shutout innings in which he permitted three hits (all singles), didn’t walk a batter and struck out six. After permitting 10 earned runs in his first three outings spanning 6 2/3 innings, De La Rosa hasn’t given up a run in his last three starts (spanning 10 innings). In that time, he’s struck out 12, walked two (none in his last two starts, spanning seven innings) and given up just seven hits.

De La Rosa’s innings and pitch count restrictions were expected to loosen to a degree on Monday, and his four innings represented his longest outing of the year. However, even though the team had planned to permit him up to 70 or 75 pitches, he was so efficient that he needed just 56 pitches to get through his four frames. He threw 37 of 56 pitches for strikes, with his 66 percent strike rate representing his second best of the year. He also elicited eight swings and misses in his outing.

The 24-year-old right-hander sat at 94 mph and touched 96 mph with his fastball. He established that as his primary pitch and then employed his secondary offerings (changeup, curve) to get swings and misses — the sort of approach with which De La Rosa struggled at times in both spring training and early with Pawtucket, but that he’s now starting to demonstrate on a consistent basis.

– Catcher Ryan Lavarnway went 2-for-4, with both of his hits (and indeed all of his at-bats) coming against right-handers. One reason why Lavarnway’s minor league track record suggests a potential everyday player in the big leagues is because he’s demonstrated the ability to produce against right-handers and left-handers. This year, his strong year (.328/.432/.500) features excellent numbers against righties (.340/.448/.489). Also noteworthy: He’s struck out in just nine of 81 plate appearances (11 percent). Read the rest of this entry »

Ryan Dempster

Ryan Dempster will face off against one of the only other Canadian starting pitchers in the majors, Scott Diamond of the Twins, at 7:10 p.m. on Tuesday.

Dempster picked up his second win on May 2 as the Sox beat the Blue Jays, 3-1. He struck out just four, his lowest strikeout total of the year, but allowed only one run on four hits and three walks over six innings.

With the Sox bullpen struggling of late, the team will hope for Dempster to pitch as far into Tuesday’s game as he can. This year, he’s twice gone five innings, twice six and twice seven, last finishing the seventh inning on April 21 against the Royals.

Dempster has started just three games against the Twins in his career, two of them last year with the Rangers. He struck out 13 over 14 innings in those two starts and allowed just two runs, picking up wins in both games.

Diamond has put together a string of three solid starts since starting off on shaky ground this season. He’s pitched at least six innings in each of his last three starts, and most recently gave up two runs over six, striking out three and walking one, as the Twins beat the Tigers, 6-2, on May 1.

Diamond emerged as a decent starter for the Twins last year in his first full season in the big leagues. Over 27 starts, he posted a 3.54 ERA and a 1.24 WHIP. His strikeout numbers were underwhelming (just 4.7 per nine innings, the second-lowest rate in the American League) but he balanced that out with the lowest walk rate in the AL, walking 1.6 batters per nine innings.

Diamond has never pitched against the Red Sox. The only current Sox who have faced him are Jonny Gomes and Shane Victorino, both of whom are hitless against him in three plate appearances each.

Apart from Jamey Carroll, who owns a .467 OBP against him in 15 PAs, Dempster has fared well against most current Twins. Justin Morneau has a solo home run against him, but Joe Mauer has had trouble with Dempster, striking out five times in seven appearances against him.

Read the rest of this entry »

Closer Joel Hanrahan will undergo an MRI on his right forearm on Tuesday. (AP)

The blown save and homer was not the low-point of Joel Hanrahan‘s competition with Brian Dozier.

On a 2-1 pitch, Hanrahan missed the zone with a 95 mph fastball. On that offering, he “felt a little pull, like my forearm went a little bit with the ball.”

At the time, he though it was minor, something with which he could continue pitching. It wasn’t.

He gave up a screaming homer over the Wall in left-center for a game-tying solo homer by Dozier. After recovering to punch out Joe Mauer, Hanrahan issued a walk to Josh Willingham. It was during that at-bat that Hanrahan realized that he was not long meant for Monday night’s game.

“Eventually I got to the point where I tried to make a pickoff to first, and the ball barely got there,” said Hanrahan. “I threw one more, and I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

He quickly exited the game for the training room, where he was diagnosed with what was described with a right forearm strain. He’ll receive an MRI on Tuesday. He’s had a forearm issue in the past — one that slowed him by about a week out of the gate in 2010 — but, by his own account, “I’ve never had a feeling like this.”

Based on his conversations with the team trainers, Hanrahan — who has now yielded four homers and blown two saves while working to a 9.82 ERA this year — said that he wasn’t necessarily alarmed. Still, his disappointment in getting injured so soon after coming off the DL for a hamstring injury is considerable.

“I talked with some of the trainers, and I feel all right about it. When we get an MRI taken on it, we’ll have a better idea. But it’s frustrating. It’s something I’ve never felt. I don’t really know how to explain it, I guess,” said Hanrahan. “This isn’t how I planned my time with the Red Sox going — dealing with the hamstring thing right out of the gate, and been back for two games, three games, and now this happens. Hopefully everything will check out all right tomorrow, it won’t be too serious, and I’ll get some time back later on.”