{"id":36501,"date":"2020-08-10T16:15:21","date_gmt":"2020-08-10T20:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=36501"},"modified":"2020-08-10T16:15:21","modified_gmt":"2020-08-10T20:15:21","slug":"boston-red-sox-release-brian-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2020\/08\/10\/boston-red-sox-release-brian-johnson\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston Red Sox Release Brian Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/boston-red-sox\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Boston Red Sox<\/a> left-handed pitcher\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=johnsbr02,johnsbr01&amp;search=Brian+Johnson&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brian Johnson<\/a><\/strong> is no longer a member of the organization. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChrisCotillo\/status\/1292910757491941380?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">According to<\/a>\u00a0<em>MassLive<\/em>&#8216;s\u00a0<strong>Christoper Smith<\/strong> and\u00a0<strong>Chris Cotillo<\/strong>, Johnson requested a release, and the team has complied. Johnson, one of the longest-tenured members of the club, spent the entirety of the 2020 season in Pawtucket.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Sources tell me and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SmittyOnMLB?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@SmittyOnMLB<\/a>: Red Sox have granted Brian Johnson his release.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Chris Cotillo (@ChrisCotillo) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChrisCotillo\/status\/1292910757491941380?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 10, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Brian Johnson Requests Release, Boston Red Sox Grant Request<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Brian Johnson isn&#8217;t the second coming of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=martipe02,martipe03,martin016ped,martin015ped,martin014ped,martin013ped&amp;search=Pedro+Martinez&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pedro Martinez<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>by any stretch of the imagination, but his inability to make the professional roster was surprising. Boston&#8217;s pitching staff has been largely terrible for the entire season, yet\u00a0<strong>Chaim Bloom<\/strong> and the front office felt that Johnson couldn&#8217;t help the team. Understandably frustrated, Johnson reportedly requested his release, and the organization granted said request.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson initially joined the organization as a first-round pick in the 2012 June Amateur Draft. The lefty quickly climbed through the ranks and became one of the top prospects in what was a great farm system. In 2014, Johnson had just a 1.75 ERA in 118 innings (20 starts) with the Portland Sea Dogs.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson&#8217;s first taste of major league action came during a spot start in 2015. Facing off against the Houston Astros, Johnson went 4.1 innings while allowing four runs. He didn&#8217;t make it back to the majors again until 2017, after a battle with anxiety. During that season, Johnson pitched 27.0 innings to the tune of a 4.33 ERA, 4.90 FIP, and a 5.26 xFIP.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson&#8217;s best season came during the 2018 campaign. The former first-round pick spend the entire season with the major league club, splitting time between the bullpen and the starting rotation. While on the mound, Johnson pitched 99.1 innings while posting a respectable 4.17 ERA, 4.68 FIP, and a 4.77 xFIP.<\/p>\n<p>As of this posting, Johnson owns a career 4.74 ERA, 4.86 FIP, and a 5.19 xFIP in 171.0 innings of work. He shouldn&#8217;t be unemployed for long and will probably be claimed off waivers.<\/p>\n<p>Main photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"6MMwXzftQ3JqWzgg-PaZHg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/818536596\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'6MMwXzftQ3JqWzgg-PaZHg',sig:'zKfSmzhpggGZ1OdC4iA0KaPKXaHMnLBib8vdjS-iXBc=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'818536596',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Boston Red Sox have reportedly released left-handed pitcher Brian Johnson. Johnson spent th entire season in Pawtucket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2376,"featured_media":36507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_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],"tags":[68,240,1356,941,69],"class_list":["post-36501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-redsox","tag-baseball","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-brian-johnson","tag-latest-mlb-news","tag-mlb"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36501","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\/2376"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}