The Red Sox had recently suffered a little bit of a tough time with some of their role players on offense, waiting for Danny Santana to be ready for his season debut while also losing both Kiké Hernández and Christian Arroyo to short-term injuries. Santana and Hernández are both up with the active roster now, and after a couple of rehab appearances it would seem Arroyo is not far behind. That part of the move has not been made official just yet, but the part where they clear room for him has. The team announced on Monday that Michael Chavis was being optioned back down to Worcester.
Following Sunday’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies, the #RedSox optioned INF/OF Michael Chavis to Triple-A Worcester.
— Red Sox (@RedSox) May 24, 2021
While Jonathan Araúz, who was called up when Arroyo first got hurt and was sent down when Hernández returned, was always going to be sent down quickly, that wasn’t as guaranteed with Chavis. He still has the talent that made him the number one prospect in the system at one point (albeit in a very weak version of the system) and he had a good spring. It was possible that, combined with struggles from Franchy Cordero, would be enough to keep him up. That’s not what went down.
Instead, Chavis goes down while Cordero stays up, with the latter hitting a bit better of late. That was punctuated with a monster of a home run on Sunday. But Chavis will get another chance. In his 33 plate appearances this year he has hit .273/.273/.485, putting up roughly league-average numbers in a small sample that was buoyed by a handful of extra base hits and masks a strikeout rate of nearly 40 percent. He’ll go back down and hit in the middle of Worcester’s order, likely as the next player to come up if there’s another injury, at least until Jarren Duran is ready.
As for Arroyo, he was a big surprise in the lineup early in the year but had been sliding a bit before getting injured. He had fallen a bit below average by that point, hitting the IL with a .275/.333/.377 line for a 98 wRC+. It’s all but certain he will be activated ahead of Tuesday’s game against the Braves and rejoin the rotation at second base.