The Boston Red Sox are 4-2 in Grapefruit League play entering this weekend and will have four games starting today when they take on the Minnesota Twins, then on Saturday they will play a split-squad game with one game against the Washington Nationals and the other game against the Tampa Bay Rays then on Sunday they will face the Toronto Blue Jays. Some players will make their debut this weekend. Jarren Duran will make his debut on Friday and will serve as the designated hitter. On Saturday Triston Casas will make his spring debut after dealing with the flu, he returned to camp on Wednesday and will start during Saturday’s split-squad games as well as Connor Wong who has been dealing with elbow soreness and will be back behind the plate; Wong so far has gone 3-7 with a double, two RBI, a run scored, and a hit by pitch, he’s hitting .429 with a 1.071 OPS. On Sunday Vaughn Grissom is expected to make his spring and Red Sox debut.
Pitching
Lucas Giolito will get the ball on Friday making his second start of the spring, in his first outing he went two innings and didn’t give up a hit or a run, he did walk one and strike out one. On Saturday Nick Pivetta will start against Tampa Bay and it will be his first start of the spring. In the other split-squad game Brayan Bello will make his second start this one comes against the Nationals with Tanner Houck also expected to pitch; Bello’s first start he went two innings against the Braves and didn’t give up a run or a hit and walked one while striking out three. Houck will make his second appearance of the spring, he started against the Phillies on Monday going two innings and didn’t allow a run, a hit, a walk, or record a strikeout. On Sunday Kutter Crawford will make his second start of spring training, his first start came last Saturday against the Cardinals when he went two innings giving up one run on three hits; he didn’t issue a walk and struck out one.
C.J. Cron Signed
The Red Sox today also signed C.J. Cron to a minor league deal. Cron will enter his 11th season having played for the Los Angeles Angels, Colorado Rockies, Minnesota Twins, Tampa Bay Rays, and Detroit Tigers. In his career, he has played in 1,049 games and he has slashed .260/.320/.471 with a .791 OPS; he has 194 doubles, ten triples, 187 home runs, 604 RBI, 470 runs scored, ten stolen bases, and 268 walks. Last year he spent time between the Rockies and Angels and in 71 games he had 64 hits, 12 doubles, 12 home runs, 37 RBI, 38 runs scored, and 17 walks.
