LOS ANGELES \u2014 Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy didn\u2019t have much in the way of injury updates on Saturday, but he did share an interesting update on the progress Tanner Houck has made in his recovery from Tommy John surgery.<\/p>\n
The right-hander has apparently been quite busy in Fort Myers.<\/p>\n
\u201cTanner continues to throw multiple pens a week, I looked at our internal thing yesterday and he threw 40-something pitches the other day,\u201d Tracy said. \u201cSo he keeps progressing in a really good direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Houck is much further along in his recovery than fellow injured right-handers Kutter Crawford and Johan Oviedo, who have missed essentially the entire season. Crawford hasn\u2019t pitched since 2024 due to a series of injuries, most recently some right flexor tendon irritation, and Oviedo made only one appearance on March 30 before going down with a right flexor strain.<\/p>\n
Tracy said Crawford is still \u201chit or miss\u201d with his throwing program and Oviedo is throwing up to 120 feet off flat ground, but Houck is nearing a point where he could start a rehab assignment before the end of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s possible,\u201d Tracy said. \u201cLet\u2019s say it this way, he\u2019s getting closer to the point where the next logical thing is he should be facing hitters. Because he\u2019s doing multiple pens a week, now whether that starts as a live (batting practice) or if we send him out, we have to figure that out but he\u2019s at least creeping towards that direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Houck hasn\u2019t pitched in the majors since May 12, 2025, when he endured his second 11-run blowup in less than a month. There had been signs that something was amiss since the start of spring training, but prior to that Houck enjoyed the best season of his career in 2024, posting a 3.12 ERA over 178 2\/3 innings while earning All-Star honors.<\/p>\n
Could Houck still make an impact on this year\u2019s club? Tracy said Houck still has a lot of boxes to check, but he\u2019s progressed to a point where he\u2019s back on the big league club\u2019s radar.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s feasible if he\u2019s able to get back that you\u2019d look at that and say \u2014 plus with his history of what he\u2019s done before, that, if he\u2019s right, that guy could help you. So we\u2019re certainly keeping an eye on that one,\u201d Tracy said. \u201cIt\u2019s got to get closer and get into sight before you feel like you can start factoring that in, but that\u2019s one that\u2019s in the mirror now, at least you can see it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy didn\u2019t have much in the way of injury updates…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[5,141,48,2542,15690,5416,791,4,89,2543,4913],"class_list":["post-767574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boston-red-sox","tag-baseball","tag-boston","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-bostonredsox","tag-chad-tracy","tag-johan-oviedo","tag-kutter-crawford","tag-mlb","tag-red-sox","tag-redsox","tag-tanner-houck"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117023154112509228","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767574","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=767574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}