{"id":123143,"date":"2026-05-30T12:05:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T16:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=123143"},"modified":"2026-05-30T12:05:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T16:05:54","slug":"this-veteran-reliever-could-solve-bostons-bullpen-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/05\/30\/this-veteran-reliever-could-solve-bostons-bullpen-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston\u2019s Bullpen Needs Help \u2014 This Veteran Reliever Fits the Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the Red Sox have had some things work this past month, some things have gone horribly. Their offense has proven they can put up runs in some games, and even when they can\u2019t, the starting pitching has been stellar. However, their bullpen as of late has been pretty bad. Pitchers like <\/span>Greg Weissert<\/span><\/a>, in particular, have really been a problem this month, with him letting half the runner he inherits score. In addition, with <\/span>Brayan Bello<\/span><\/a> struggling to start games<\/span><\/a>, Boston has used openers in his starts. And the opener experiments have gone terribly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Greg Weissert has inherited 21 runners this season and 12 of them have scored.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Christopher Smith (@SmittyOnMLB) May 28, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In four games where Brayan Bello has come in long relief, the openers have an exponentially higher ERA in the first inning than Bello, who holds an ERA of 11.57 <\/span>in the first inning<\/span><\/a>. Mostly, it\u2019s been <\/span>Jovani Moran<\/span><\/a> on the bad side of this. On Friday night, it was rookie <\/span>Tyler Samaniego<\/span><\/a>. Whether it\u2019s the opener, or just poor pitching in the later innings, the bullpen has been lackluster recently. But the Red Sox may have an answer sitting in Worcester, and they have to act soon.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Red Sox openers for Brayan Bello this season<\/p>\n

4 GS- 4.0 IP – 13 H – 9 ER<\/p>\n

20.25 ERA – 3.75 WHIP<\/p>\n

So another decision made by the Red Sox than isn\u2019t just bad but incredibly bad<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t one person that doesn\u2019t believe this game is already over<\/p>\n

pic.twitter.com\/LGUWRbwo3w<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 bostonsportsinf (@jsgiii22661) May 29, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tommy Kahnle Could Solve The Red Sox\u2019s Bullpen Problems<\/b><\/h2>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

Tommy Kahnle<\/span><\/a> is a career bullpen veteran that debuted in 2014. He\u2019s pitched for many teams such as the Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Dodgers, but his best years have come with the rival New York Yankees, particularly in the later years of his career. In 2023, he had a 2.66 ERA in 42 appearances. This was later outdone in 2024, with a 2.11 ER in 50 appearances.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Back in mid-March, he <\/span>signed with the Red Sox<\/span><\/a> on a minor league contract. But the contract had a condition to it. If he was not called up to the 40 man roster by June 1, he could opt out of his contract and search for another team.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That wouldn\u2019t be ideal for the Red Sox. Kahnle\u2019s having a great year in Triple-A Worcester. In 19.1 innings pitched, he holds a 1.40 ERA and 21 strikeouts. He\u2019s somewhat had a closer role as well with five saves in 18 appearances out of the bullpen. Despite a down year last year in Detroit, where he only had a 18.7% strikeout percentage (almost nine percent lower than his career K%), he seems to be bouncing back well in the Red Sox system.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Red Sox Need To Act <\/b>Now<\/i><\/b><\/h2>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

His original contract expired on May 1st, but no teams showed serious interest for an active roster addition, so the Red Sox picked it up for another month. Seeing the struggles their bullpen is going through currently, combined with Kahnle\u2019s minor league success, there\u2019s almost no reason why he <\/span>shouldn\u2019t <\/span><\/i>be on this current roster. The only consistent reliever with a better ERA than Kahnle currently is closer <\/span>Aroldis Chapman<\/span><\/a>. Plus, with <\/span>Garrett Whitlock<\/span><\/a> being <\/span>sidelined for possibly the next couple of weeks<\/span><\/a>, someone\u2019s going to have to fill the role.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After Weissert\u2019s poor performance against the Atlanta Braves on Thursday afternoon, it\u2019s getting hard to see why he\u2019s still on this team. While a 4.43 ERA may not seem horrible in today\u2019s game,<\/span> batters are hitting<\/span><\/a> .319 against him with runners on. Even in his off year, Kahnle only had a .240 OBA with <\/span>runners on the bases<\/span><\/a> in 2025. Between injuries and poor performances, there needs to be a change. And Kahnle could be that change for the better.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Last Word\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n

The Red Sox have until Monday to decide what to do with Tommy Kahnle. As mentioned before, given the circumstances with the Whitlock injury, there\u2019s certainly room for him in the bullpen, at least for a couple weeks if not longer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Image Credit:<\/strong> Junfu Han \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the Red Sox have had some things work this past month, some things have gone horribly. Their offense has proven they can put up runs in some games, and even when they can\u2019t, the starting pitching has been stellar. However, their bullpen as of late has been pretty bad. Pitchers like Greg Weissert, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5767,"featured_media":123146,"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":[4,2,1071],"tags":[209,240,6294,6296,29569,1550,29431],"class_list":["post-123143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-redsox","category-featured","category-mlb","tag-aroldis-chapman","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-garrett-whitlock","tag-greg-weissert","tag-jovani-moran","tag-tommy-kahnle","tag-tyler-samaniego"],"modified_by":"Matthew Nethercott, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123143","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=123143"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123147,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123143\/revisions\/123147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}