Red Sox CBO says Boston may rely on pair of recently-acquired young flamethrowers down the stretch

The Boston Red Sox ’s Chief of Baseball Operations Craig Breslow said they may be relying on their recently-acquired young flamethrowers Quinn Priester and Richard Fitts, per MassLive’s Chris Cotillo .

“Fitts has had a really good month of August so far,” Breslow said. “We’re certainly mindful of that and keeping an eye on him.”

Fitts, who has a 2.12 ERA in August, has been throwing fire. In his last start in AAA, he topped out at 98mph, pitched five innings, got five K’s, and only let one run score.

Priester has also been cooking as well. He topped out at 97mph, where in the majors for the Pittsburgh Pirates he topped out at 93mph. His past start for the Woo Sox was for five shutout innings using only 42 pitches, 29 of them being strikes.

This may be cause for concern, but it also may not, depending on how you look at it. On the optimistic side, bringing in two young arms who can throw heat would help the Sox immensely at this point in the season. On the pessimistic side, bringing in two rookie pitchers this late in the season may mean the Red Sox think if they lose this upcoming series to the Houston Astros, they aren’t going to try for the playoffs anymore.

Hopefully, the second option isn’t the case. To find out, the first game of the Houston series is tonight at 8:10pm EST.

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