Steven Wright arrested on domestic assault charges

According to a report from WEEI’s Rob Bradford, Red Sox starting pitcher Steven Wright was arrested on domestic assault charges on Friday night. He was released Saturday morning.

Wright was also charged with preventing a 911 call.

The Red Sox are aware of the situation and released a statement Sunday night after the news became public.

'We are aware of the incident involving Steven. This is certainly a matter that the Red Sox take very seriously. It is my understanding that both local police and MLB are looking into this and for that reason, the club won’t have any further comment at this time.

Meanwhile, representatives from Wright’s camp have released a statement of their own on the knuckleballer’s behalf.

Wright missed almost all of 2017 with a knee injury but was expected to come back in 2018 and serve as an important piece of depth in the rotation. Back in 2016 he really broke onto the scene with a breakout season in Boston’s rotation that included an All-Star Game appearance. The plan was likely for Wright to start the year as Boston’s fifth starter with Eduardo Rodriguez on the shelf, though there’s a good chance he’s now looking at a suspension to start his season.

This, of course, is a very serious situation and everyone involved needs to handle it carefully and correctly. Domestic violence certainly isn’t a new thing in sports or in our society, but leagues including MLB have finally started taking it more seriously. Obviously, at this point, we have no idea if Wright will be convicted of a crime at this point, but that doesn’t matter in terms of suspension. In recent years we’ve seen Rob Manfred use his commissioner powers to suspend those charged with domestic assault regardless of the legal outcome of the case. Examples of this include Aroldis Chapman, Jose Reyes and Jeurys Familia.