When Tommy Kahnle signed with the Red Sox on a minor league deal during spring training, the veteran right-hander\u2019s contract included an opt out provision that would allow him to seek other big league opportunities if the club didn\u2019t promote him by June 1.<\/p>\n
Kahnle exercised that opt out on Monday, forcing the Red Sox to either call the righty up or potentially lose him to another club.<\/p>\n
The Red Sox decided to keep him around.<\/p>\n
Kahnle was added to the big league roster shortly before first pitch on Thursday, with the Red Sox optioning rookie left-hander Tyler Samaniego to Triple-A to clear a spot.<\/p>\n
The Red Sox also transferred shortstop Trevor Story to the 60-day injured list to open a space on the 40-man roster.<\/p>\n
Now in his 12th MLB season, the 36-year-old has posted a 3.61 ERA in 456 career appearances. He is coming off a 2025 season in Detroit in which he had a 4.43 ERA in 66 games with the Tigers, and prior to that he had two strong seasons in the New York Yankees bullpen.<\/p>\n
This season Kahnle has posted strong numbers with the WooSox, including a 1.40 ERA in 19 1\/3 innings, and he briefly played for Chad Tracy, who started the year as his manager in Worcester before being elevated to the big league job.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did great down there,\u201d Tracy said. \u201cWith a guy like that you also know the history, the big innings, late innings, leverage innings he\u2019s thrown in the big leagues already. The changeup has always been a factor and he can handle both right and left, so it\u2019s a good option to have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tracy praised Kahnle\u2019s work ethic and his willingness to expand his repertoire at this stage of his career, saying he\u2019s been working on throwing his fastball more since joining the Red Sox along with other alternatives to help keep opposing batters off his changeup.<\/p>\n
That being said, Tracy noted that Kahnle has built a career off that pitch and it will remain his primary weapon.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople often know it\u2019s coming and it\u2019s a good enough pitch to get people out,\u201d Tracy said.<\/p>\n
Kahnle\u2019s arrival in Boston has been a long time coming. The right-hander has been pursued by the Red Sox on multiple occasions in free agency, including ahead of the 2023 season when he ultimately decided to sign with the Yankees. He won\u2019t have to wait long to experience the other side of that rivalry, as the Red Sox are set to fly to New York later Thursday for this weekend\u2019s series in the Bronx.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Tommy Kahnle signed with the Red Sox on a minor league deal during spring training, the veteran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":717278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2386],"tags":[5,48,147,53,2583,4,89,594,1091,1035,60782],"class_list":["post-717277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-detroit-tigers","tag-baseball","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-detroittigers","tag-mlb","tag-red-sox","tag-tigers","tag-tommy-kahnle","tag-trevor-story","tag-tyler-samaniego"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116692994164901410","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717277","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=717277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/717278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}