FORT MYERS, Fla. — With rookie lefthander Connelly Early set to start the third game of the season for the Red Sox, righthander Johan Oviedo will begin the year in the bullpen.
The Red Sox see Oviedo as a potential piggyback starter who can be paired with lefthander Ranger Suarez — still building his pitch count after limited usage in the World Baseball Classic — to cover several relief innings, thus protecting the rest of the bullpen. Once Suarez gets further stretched out after two turns of the rotation, the Sox will reassess Oviedo’s role.
“[Having Oviedo in the bullpen] is about length and where we’re at with Ranger,” said manager Alex Cora. “I think it makes sense to have him there, and whenever we deploy him, we deploy him. We’re kind of targeting Monday in Houston [for Oviedo, when Suarez is scheduled to start], but you never know what can happen before that.”
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Though lefthander Payton Tolle showed flashes of dominance at times this spring, the Sox elected not to keep him in the bullpen to begin the year.
“Can’t have both [Tolle and Early] in the big leagues. That’s the way we saw it,” said Cora. “It doesn’t make sense roster-wise to carry both of them. Just felt like Early kind of earned that spot. Tolle did everything that we asked him to do. [But] there’s still some development. … I believe he’s going to contribute at this level. But it’s not right now.”
Suarez looks for next gear
Suarez shrugged off the results of his final spring training start. Though he allowed eight runs on nine hits in 4⅓ innings, he felt good physically while building his workload to 69 pitches and employing six different pitch types. Suarez cracked 90 miles per hour just twice in the outing, but expressed little anxiety.
“I don’t give too much importance to velocity this time of the year,” Suarez said via translator. “Obviously, we want to throw hard, but the most important part is I feel good physically, I’m healthy, so I feel like that will come later on. . . . I’m ready to go.”
Cora said he wasn’t concerned about Suarez’s velocity, but noticed his curveball has been off this spring.Suarez gave up one of his two homers on Tuesday on a hanging breaker.
Lefthander Jovani Morán made the team, and fellow lefty Danny Coulombe — who is staying in Fort Myers to pitch in a minor league game on Wednesday — is also expected in Cincinnati barring any setback. The Sox bullpen is thus lefthander Aroldis Chapman and righthander Garrett Whitlock at the end of games, righties Greg Weissert and Justin Slaten in front of them, with Oviedo and Rule 5 pick Ryan Watson, also a righty, as long relievers, and Morán and Coulombe … Righthander Brayan Bello will start a minor league game in Fort Myers on Wednesday before joining the team in Cincinnati. Bello is slated to start the fifth game of the season, against the Astros in Houston.
Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him @alexspeier.