Heath Hembree placed on IL; David Price placed on paternity list

The Red Sox are reeling and are looking for a big turnaround this weekend in New York. As they try and take this four-games-in-three-days series, they will have a few tweaks on their pitching staff. Two players lose their spots on the roster for different reasons, as Heath Hembree hits the 10-day injured list with inflammation in his elbow while David Price was placed on the paternity list.

As you can see in the tweets above, Josh Smith was called up as the corresponding move for Hembree’s move while Marco Hernandez comes up for Price. As it stands, the Red Sox are back to a 12-man pitching staff at least for the time being. Brian Johnson is scheduled to start one end of Saturday’s doubleheader and a roster spot will need to be made for him at some point shortly after that — he may technically be the 26th man for Saturday, but by Sunday another move will have to be made — so this could be a very short stint in the majors for one of these guys.

As for Hembree, well, it’s not much of a surprise. The righty has been incredibly ineffective since coming back from his last IL stint. Over nine inning and twelve appearances he had allowed ten runs (nine earned) on ten strikeouts and six walks with three homers. His velocity was down and his command was virtually nonexistent. The Red Sox kept insisting he was healthy, but it was clear to anyone watching that something was not right. After Hembree’s appearance on Thurdsay Lou Merloni tweeted that the righty was shaking his arm on his way back to the dugout. So, this wasn’t much of a surprise. Smith will give the Red Sox a long reliever at the very least in case a starter is knocked out early.

Meanwhile, Price’s absence is for a much more positive reason as he and his wife Tiffany are welcoming a new baby (or three?) into the world. There will always be doofuses who complain about players taking paternity leave at certain points of the season, but morons like that are not worth arguing with. If that describes you, it’s time to evolve a bit. Anyway, having Hernandez back on the roster is a nice sight. Many of us, myself included, were upset to see him optioned with Sam Travis staying up. The latter has mostly shut us up since then, but Hernandez is still more than deserving of this roster spot. Price was scheduled to start Sunday, and as of now there is no word on whether or not he’ll be back in time for that start or not. We’ll keep our ears to the ground.