Saturday Red Sox Lineup: Pedro Ciriaco Starts At Third

Will Middlebrooks is done for now, leaving third base open for the next two months. With the recent addition of Danny Valencia, the Sox have three options for the spot: Valencia, Punto, or Ciriaco.

Most of us will be very happy to see that, at least for the first game of the post-Middlebrooks period, Pedro Ciriaco will be the choice at the hot corner.

Ciriaco isn't Will Middlebrooks. He's not a highly-rated prospect, but a 26-year-old quadruple-A player making the absolute best of his opportunity. This is not to say that Ciriaco can't play baseball. He's clearly got the glove going for him, and while there's no way he's going to keep that .406 BABIP going, he doesn't exactly need to maintain a .373 wOBA to be a valuable player at shortstop.

While obviously we'd all rather have Will Middlebrooks healthy and playing, hopefully we at least now will get an extended look at Ciriaco, and see if maybe he can be part of the plan going forward, even if just as a backup infielder.