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Everyone need a breather? After Varitek, Beltre, and Papelbon, this should be some nice cool down news.
According to Baseball America's Matt Eddy, the Red Sox have signed right-handed pitcher Brandon Duckworth to a minor league deal.
Despite having played in the majors for parts of eight seasons, Duckworth has basically established himself as a quadruple-A player. While capable of putting up good numbers in the minors (including a 3.32 ERA on decent peripherals last year), Brandon hasn't ever found the same level of success in the big leagues. Acting mainly as a starter, Duckworth has only been able to manage a 5.28 career ERA. While he had a more impressive 4.50 mark in seven startsin 2008 (his last season in the majors), he struck out only one more batter than he walked. Pretty ugly stuff.
The chances are that Duckworth never sees major league time this year, as you have to figure that Tim Wakefield, Felix Doubront, and Michael Bowden are ahead of him in line for spot starts. But I guess it never hurts to have a better ninth or tenth guy.
Plus his name is pretty funny.