{"id":117809,"date":"2026-04-03T20:49:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T00:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=117809"},"modified":"2026-04-03T20:49:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T00:49:24","slug":"red-sox-roster-moves-before-home-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/04\/03\/red-sox-roster-moves-before-home-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox Roster Moves: Changes Made Ahead of Home Opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Boston Red Sox had their home opener against the San Diego Padres this afternoon, winning 5-2. Prior to that, however, they made a couple of changes, specifically in the bullpen. The Red Sox announced a series\u00a0 of roster moves this morning, including <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/o\/oviedjo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-03_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Johan Oviedo<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/whitlga01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-03_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Garrett Whitlock<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> would be put on the inactive list, and that two (somewhat) familiar faces for fans will be taking over.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"max-width: 610px\"><smartframe-embed class=\"smartframe_wp_element\" customer-id=\"b0c95bc04383cef69c6b47df872135cf\" image-id=\"WmOBJ604EXcX\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 4410px; aspect-ratio: 4410\/2940;\" ><\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n<h2>Red Sox Make Several Roster Moves Ahead of Home Opener<\/h2>\n<h2><b>Inactives\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Johan Oviedo<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oviedo was the main piece of <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the return <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/12\/04\/red-sox-acquire-johan-oviedo-pirates-acquire-garcia\/\" target=\"_self\">in a trade<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> involving <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/garcijh01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-03_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jhostynxon Garcia<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> during the offseason. Going into the season, fans were a little cautious about the move, and rightfully so. Due to having Tommy John surgery in 2024, as well as a lat injury in 2025, he\u2019s appeared in nine games in the past two years. This year, he backed up <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/suarera01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-03_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ranger Su\u00e1rez<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the 8-1 defeat against the Houston Astros on Monday. After that, <\/span><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2026\/04\/red-sox-johan-oviedo-injured-list-elbow-tyler-uberstine-mlb-debut.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">word broke this morning<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> about a right elbow strain. The coaching staff noticed something off about his velocity and sent him to medical examiners, who would later give him the diagnosis. The timetable or the severity of the injury is not currently known at this point.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/RedSox?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#RedSox<\/a> today announced the following roster moves: <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/uuYNoXJMpT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/uuYNoXJMpT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Red Sox (@RedSox) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RedSox\/status\/2040074880595480589?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 3, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Garrett Whitlock\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whitlock\u2019s absence is less severe in the sense that it\u2019s not an injury. He was put on the paternity leave list as he left the team on Wednesday to welcome his second child. In terms of a timetable, he could be back by the end of the weekend. From a pitching standpoint, Whitlock\u2019s been one of the brighter spots on this team. He hasn\u2019t allowed a run in three games and recorded a hold in the only win this season for Boston. Coming off a season where he was seen as a part of one of the best setup man-<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/08\/29\/former-yankees-closer-aroldis-chapman-turns-career-around-red-sox\/\" target=\"_self\">closer<\/a> duos in the majors (with closer <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/chapmar01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-03_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aroldis Chapman<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">), Boston fans can only hope he continues his success, granted that the team bounces back as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Roster Call-Ups\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Zack Kelly\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fans may remember this name in the organization, although maybe not for the right reasons, such as <\/span><a  href=\"http:\/\/masslive.com\/redsox\/2025\/04\/red-sox-zack-kelly-gonna-have-to-wear-this-one-tanner-deserved-a-win.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">horrible outings like this<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. But it wasn\u2019t too long ago that <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kellyza01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-03_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Zack Kelly<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> had a successful season. In 2024, Kelly went 6-3, holding batters to a career low .208 OBA. He also had a career high in strikeout rate, with 25.3%. The problem in \u201825 was some of his pitches. While his <\/span><a  href=\"https:\/\/baseballsavant.mlb.com\/savant-player\/zack-kelly-677161\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">six-pitch mix <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">included some pitches that fooled batters, such as his cutter and sweeper, others didn\u2019t. His changeup was probably the most confusing based on analytics. His changeup had a 32% whiff rate, yet batters hit .308 off of it. Until Oviedo\u2019s timetable is revealed, it\u2019s unknown how big or small a role Kelly will have. But if he looks like his 2024 self, it\u2019s a decent call-up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Tyler Uberstine\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This may be <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=uberst000tyl&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-03_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tyler Uberstine<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019s major league debut, but those who watched spring training saw him a decent amount. He opened up the spring against Northeastern, then started four other games across February and March. He struggled,\u00a0 with an ERA of 6.14 and letting up more runs (eight) than innings pitched (7 1\/3). This season, he started out with Triple-A Worcester, only pitching one game so far, but already improving with an ERA of 2.25.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like Kelly, his role in the bullpen is unknown for now. And one of them will probably be sent back down when Whitlock comes back. But in a series where the Red Sox need to get back on track, other players need to step up and prove their worth. These guys have their chance this weekend.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Boston Red Sox had their home opener against the San Diego Padres this afternoon, winning 5-2. Prior to that, however, they made a couple of changes, specifically in the bullpen. The Red Sox announced a series\u00a0 of roster moves this morning, including that Johan Oviedo and Garrett Whitlock would be put on the inactive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5767,"featured_media":115622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1071,35],"tags":[209,6294,29204,4891,3009,28582],"class_list":["post-117809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-redsox","category-mlb","category-news","tag-aroldis-chapman","tag-garrett-whitlock","tag-jhostynxon-garcia","tag-johan-oviedo","tag-ranger-suarez","tag-zack-kelly"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5767"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117809"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117847,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117809\/revisions\/117847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}