After an eventful loss to the Washington Nationals on June 30, which put an end to their longest winning streak of the season, the Boston Red Sox made a late-night trade to bolster their infield depth group.
The Red Sox have traded for infielder Brett Harris from the Athletics, first reported by Chris Cotillo of MassLive. Boston will send righty pitching prospect Ben Hansen to the A's in return. Harris has been added to the 40-man roster in Tommy Kahnle's former spot and optioned to Triple-A Worcester.
The A's selected Harris in the seventh round of the 2021 MLB Draft and he's spent his entire big league career with them. He's appeared in the major leagues in each of the last three seasons, with a .194/.307/.289 slash line over 73 games. He doesn't have a hit in four big league at-bats this year. He's a decent defender with major league experience at first, second and third base.
The Red Sox's infield is under stress at the time of the Harris trade. Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Marcelo Mayer, Trevor Story and Nick Sogard are all on the injured list for various lengths of time. Boston's minor league infielders — Sogard being one of them, Anthony Seigler and Tsung-Che Cheng are some of the others — are largely already up with the big league team, so it's running thin on depth options in Triple-A. Harris is seemingly filling that role as he was optioned after the trade.
Red Sox's trade for A's infielder Brett Harris could be sign of long injured list stints for Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Marcelo Mayer
Boston's stashing of another infielder could signal that Kiner-Falefa and Mayer will be on the IL for quite some time (both have bone stress issues in their forearms). Story isn't due back until after the All-Star break and Sogard will reportedly begin a rehab assignment soon, but the Sox have to have backup options in the event of more injuries.
Willson Contreras is seemingly destined for a suspension after his attempted brawl with Washington Nationals pitcher Cade Cavalli, so the infield staff could be even more shorthanded in the coming days. Nate Eaton was also ejected for fighting Miles Mikolas, and his status remains unknown.
The Red Sox are fresh off their longest winning streak of the season (five games) fueled by a sweep of the New York Yankees. They were seemingly about to take off on the winning run they needed to inch closer to Wild Card contention, even after multiple infield injuries hit in succession. Long IL stints for Kiner-Falefa and Mayer would be far from ideal, but at least Boston has as backup plan.
Add us as a preferred source on Google