Steven Wright suspended 15 games for domestic violence

Back in December, Red Sox pitcher Steven Wright was arrested on charges of domestic abuse and preventing a 911 call following an incident with his wife. We don’t know what happened that night, and both he and his wife have said he never actually struck her, but it’s clear that he is guilty of doing something that made his wife scared enough to call the police. Wright had his day in court and his case was retired, and the charges are expected to be dropped completely after a 12-month probation period. Despite that, MLB has continued to investigate the issue as they attempt to take a hard stance against domestic issues. It was always expected that he’d receive a suspension from the league, but the length was uncertain. On Friday, we learned that a 15-game suspension will be handed down from the league.

This is a relatively short suspension from the league given how hard they’ve come down on other cases in the past, and one would have to imagine the case being retired and likely dropped had an impact. As Drellich notes in his report, this ties with Jeurys Familia as the shortest suspension from MLB related to domestic incidents since the league and the Players Union agreed to a new domestic violence policy in 2015.

If Wright is to start the season on the disabled list, that will not count towards his suspension. Expect Brian Johnson to possibly get a few turns through the rotation in Wright’s absence, depending on the health of Drew Pomeranz and Eduardo Rodriguez.

UPDATE: MLB has made the suspension official and released a statement.