Red Sox place Swihart, Hanigan on DL, option Ramirez, recall Hembree, Castillo, Leon

The Red Sox have made a flurry of roster moves Sunday morning, placing Blake Swihart and Ryan Hanigan on the disabled list, optioning Noe Ramirez to Pawtucket, and recalling Heath Hembree, Rusney Castillo, and Sandy Leon in their places.

So the good news from all this is that the Swihart injury is a sprain. We don't know how bad of one just yet, but iven the force of the collision, this feels like one of the better outcomes. They'll still be without him in any capacity for at least the next two weeks--particularly bad timing given that their backup catcher also finds himself sidelined--but at least we're not looking at a break or something like that. For Hanigan, it's the neck straing that pulled him out of last night's game partway through, though it's not clear how that developed.

The other good news is that Heath Hembree is back. Normally he'd still have a few days to go until he could be recalled. But, while the real counter-move here is Noe Ramirez to Pawtucket, by placing two players on the disabled list at the same time, the Red Sox free up the option to bring him back early.

The same is true for Rusney Castillo, who was also recently with the team even if you never would have known it from watching the games. Now that Swihart is unavailable, though, he might actually get a chance to play a game or two. He hasn't performed in Pawtucket, and he probably won't be facing any lefties, but maybe he'll show them something in what time he has.

Finally, there's Sandy Leon. Fortunately for him is that the bar is just not very high. Ryan Hanigan has been kind of a mess both at the plate and trying to catch Steven Wright's knuckleball. We'll see if Vazquez or Leon is tasked with the latter, but if it seems like it's tempting fate to suggest he can't be much worse, well, last night's two-run strikeout is gonna be hard to top.