{"id":27503,"date":"2025-05-15T00:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T00:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/27503\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T00:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T00:14:09","slug":"red-sox-place-tanner-houck-on-injured-list-with-flexor-pronator-strain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/27503\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox Place Tanner Houck On Injured List With Flexor Pronator Strain"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Red Sox have placed right-handed starting pitcher Tanner Houck<\/a> on the 15-day injured list with a flexor pronator strain in his pitching arm. In a corresponding move, the team recalled fellow right-hander Cooper Criswell<\/a> from Triple-A.<\/p>\n

Following a strong 2024 season, Houck has not pitched well in 2025. Through nine starts, he is 0-3 with an 8.04 ERA. He has struck out just 32 batters in 43 2\/3 innings, while walking 17 and hitting five. On two separate occasions, including his most recent outing on Monday, he has given up 11 earned runs in a start and failed to escape the third inning. If those two games were scratched from the register, his ERA would drop to 3.92, and his strikeout and walk rates would look much closer to what they were last season. But of course, there\u2019s no pretending those blow-ups didn\u2019t happen. Now, at least, Houck and the Red Sox might have an explanation for his struggles.<\/p>\n

After Monday\u2019s game, Red Sox manager Alex Cora told Chris Cotillo of MassLive<\/a> that he was still trying to figure out why Houck had been so ineffective. \u201cI\u2019ve got to take a look at the video and we\u2019ve got to see what we\u2019re gonna do,\u201d he explained. \u201cRight now, it\u2019s too fresh. It\u2019s too quick. We have to take a look at it and see if it\u2019s mechanical, usage, or where we\u2019re at.\u201d At that point in time, the skipper didn\u2019t suggest the problem could be injury-related. Indeed, Cotillo notes<\/a> that as recently as this afternoon, Cora continued to insist that Houck would start again this weekend. Now, Houck will not be able to return for at least two weeks. It\u2019s unclear how long he\u2019ll be out.<\/p>\n

The Red Sox have not confirmed whether Criswell will make a start in Houck\u2019s place. Criswell was more than serviceable as a starter last season, pitching to a 3.49 ERA and 4.21 FIP in 18 starts. While he failed to earn a rotation spot out of spring training, he has started his last four games at Triple-A to great success. In 20 2\/3 innings, he has a 1.74 ERA with 27 strikeouts. Still, it\u2019s possible he was called up to be an extra arm out of the bullpen instead. The Red Sox might prefer to move Sean Newcomb<\/a> back from the bullpen into the rotation. After all, Newcomb beat out Criswell for a rotation spot on the Opening Day roster. Newcomb was also the reliever who came out of the bullpen and gave the team 5 2\/3 strong innings on Monday after Houck\u2019s early exit. In other words, he\u2019s stretched out enough to start, and he\u2019s on schedule to seamlessly take over for Houck.<\/p>\n

There is also a chance the Red Sox won\u2019t need either of Criswell or Newcomb to step up. They could skip Houck\u2019s turn in the rotation and give the ball to Brayan Bello<\/a> on Sunday, a course of action made possible by an off day on Thursday. Then, Walker Buehler<\/a>, who is expected to be activated from the IL early next week (per Cotillo<\/a>), could potentially make the start on Monday, giving Boston a rotation of Bello, Buehler, Garrett Crochet<\/a>, Lucas Giolito<\/a>, and Hunter Dobbins<\/a>. This is only an option, however, if Buehler is ready to go by Monday. While the Red Sox are planning for him to rejoin the team at some point during their series with the Mets, it\u2019s not yet clear if Monday is a realistic date for his return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Red Sox have placed right-handed starting pitcher Tanner Houck on the 15-day injured list with a flexor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[5,141,48,2542,4,89,2543,4913],"class_list":{"0":"post-27503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-red-sox","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-red-sox","11":"tag-bostonredsox","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-red-sox","14":"tag-redsox","15":"tag-tanner-houck"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114508966496209043","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}