March 21, 2023 at 1:00 PM
Fort Report: Jiménez homers off Rays ace McClanahan as part of busy week
The last full week of spring training is upon us, which means the penultimate Fort Report of the year is here. With a record of 12-8-4, the Red Sox have just eight Grapefruit League games remaining on their schedule before Opening Day arrives on March 30. Here is a rundown of things that have happened over the last seven or so days:
Rodriguez strains right oblique
On Monday, Red Sox manager Alex Cora announced that left-hander Joely Rodriguez had ben diagnosed with a Grade 2 right oblique strain. Rodriguez injured his right side in Saturday's game against the Orioles and will now start the season on the injured list. If Boston looks externally for another left-handed bullpen option to pair with Richard Bleier, Cora identified Oddanier Mosqueda and Ryan Sherriff as two possibilities.
PTBNL acquired from Royals
On Sunday, the Red Sox acquired infield prospect Angel Pierre from the Royals as the player to be named later in the Adalberto Mondesi/Josh Taylor trade from January. Pierre, 19, signed with Kansas City as an international free agent coming out of the Dominican Republic last winter. The right-handed hitter spent the 2022 season in the Dominican Summer League and batted 300/.424/.500 with 11 doubles, four triples, two home runs, 19 RBIs, 23 runs scored, nine stolen bases, 21 walks, and 31 strikeouts in 33 games (125 plate appearances) while seeing the majority of his playing time come at third base. He has been assigned to Boston's Florida Complex League affiliate.
Ravelo suffers knee contusion
In the ninth inning of Sunday's game against the Phillies in Clearwater, Luis Ravelo injured his left knee while running from second to third base. As Ravelo ran towards third on a broken-bat single from Blaze Jordan, part of Jordan's shattered bat struck Ravelo in the knee. The 19-year-old infielder immediately hit the ground in pain and had to be taken out of the game. He was later diagnosed with a left knee contusion.
Jimenez homers off McClanahan
As part of a split-squad doubleheader on Saturday, Gilberto Jimenez (pictured, above) took All-Star lefty Shane McClanahan deep in the third inning of a 3-1 loss to the Rays at Tropicana Field. Hitting from the right side of the plate, the 22-year-old Jimenez crushed an 87 mph changeup 367 feet over the left field fence for his first hit and first home run of the spring.
Other injury notes
Our own Chris Hatfield reported on Sunday that Devlin Granberg (back) and Tyreque Reed (elbow) are slated to miss a significant amount of time due to their respective injuries. Mikey Romero, who Boston took with the 24th overall pick in last year's draft, is also dinged up and may not be ready for Opening Day.
Visa issues
Cora told reporters on Monday that infielder Yu Chang would not arrive at camp in Fort Myers until Thursday as the 27-year-old continues to work through visa issues in Taiwan. Additionally, Hatfield reports that infield prospect Brainer Bonaci is not yet in camp because of his own visa issues. In the meantime, though, the native Venezuelan has been working out at the Red Sox' Dominican academy.
Transactions
The Red Sox have continued trimming their spring training roster over the last week. On Monday, Boston reassigned non-roster invitees Stephen Scott, Christian Koss, Nick Sogard, Narciso Crook, and Ryan Fitzgerald to minor-league camp. Last Wednesday, Matt Dermody was reassigned to minor-league camp. Last Tuesday, Chris Murphy and Enmanuel Valdez were both optioned to Triple-A Worcester while Mosqueda and Chase Shugart were reassigned to minor-league camp.
As of this writing, the Red Sox have 41 players remaining on their major-league spring training roster. Of those 41 players, seven are in camp as non-roster invitees. Those seven non-roster invitees are Jorge Alfaro, Caleb Hamilton, Ronaldo Hernandez, Niko Goodrum, Daniel Palka, Greg Allen, and Raimel Tapia.
Key links
Our own director of scouting Ian Cundall has been patrolling the back fields of Fenway South for the last week and has captured some video of Luis Perales (link), Roman Anthony (link), Christopher Troye (link), and Cutter Coffey (link), among others.
Chris and Ian recently sat down with Alex Speier of The Boston Globe and Jim Callis of MLB.com on Episode 276 of the SoxProspects Podcast. You can listen to the episode in its entirety by clicking here.
Speaking of Ian, he wrapped up the '2023 Countdown to Spring Training' series last week with a detailed report on the organization's top prospect, Marcelo Mayer.
Minor-leaguers in major-league games
We will continue tracking the players who are not in major league camp but get looks in MLB games. The full list, with current ranking in parentheses: Pitchers Skylar Arias, Cam Booser, Brendon Cellucci, Rio Gomez, Luis Guerrero (29), Joe Jacques, Robert Kwiatkowski, Sterling Sharp, Joey Stock, Jake Thompson, Jacob Webb, Brendan Nail, Cody Scroggins, Matt Dermody, Ryan Sherriff, Taylor Broadway (41), Norwith Gudino, Oddanier Mosqueda (48), Chase Shugart (57), Ryan Zeferjahn (58), and Ryan Miller; infielders Christian Koss (33), Daniel Palka, Nick Sogard, Niko Goodrum, Matthew Lugo (14), Niko Kavadas (20), Edwin Diaz, Ahbram Liendo, Alex Binelas (35), Blaze Jordan (15), Luis Ravelo (45), Eddinson Paulino (11), and Marcelo Mayer (1); catchers Stephen Scott (40), Ronaldo Hernandez (38), Elih Marrero and Caleb Hamilton; outfielders Marcus Wilson, Raimel Tapia, Narcisco Crook, Nick Decker, Gilberto Jimenez (39), Greg Allen, Max Ferguson, Juan Chacon (52), Karson Simas, Corey Rosier, Phillip Sikes, Tyler Dearden, Allan Castro (44), Miguel Bleis (3) Eduardo Lopez (50), Miguel Ugueto, and Jhostynxon Garcia; and utilitymen Ryan Fitzgerald (54) and Tyler McDonough (30).
New players added this week are Garcia, Lopez, and Ugueto.
Photo Credit: Gilberto Jimenez by Kelly O'Connor