Manager Ron Roenicke on Saturday confirmed what's been obvious for some time: Nathan Eovaldi will pitch the Red Sox season opener on Friday against the Baltimore Orioles.
Roenicke made the announcement after informing Eovaldi of the assignment a day earlier.
The news comes as Eduardo Rodriguez, who would have otherwise had the honor before testing positive for COVID-19 earlier this month, rejoins the team in Boston. He was at Fenway Park for the first time on Saturday, cleared to resume workouts and threw briefly in the bullpen.
Rodriguez has been throwing regularly during his time quarantined in South Florida, but when asked if he could categorically rule out Rodriguez for the opener in another six days, the manager revealed the news.
"Let's rule him out and let's start Eovaldi on Friday,'' said Roenicke with a smile. "I talked to Nate (Friday). So we'll do that. It's just not fair to Eddie to (ask him to start in less than a week) and really, I couldn't do that. We'll evaluate him. I don't know where he folds in, but yeah, it's not going to be the first week, I wouldn't think. We'll just see where he is and be fair to everybody and make sure we're doing this the right way.''
The plan is for the Sox to have Rodriguez throw on the side Saturday and determine where is in terms of arm strength and general conditioning before moving on to facing hitters later this week.
"We'll do some up-and-down bullpens,'' 'said Roenicke, "and when Dave (Bush) thinks he's ready, we'll start doing the simulated games and live BPs for him. It doesn't mean he has to get his pitch count up to 85 or anything. If he's feeling good and we think we can do this in-season, maybe he throws four innings (in a game) and we think his four innings are going to better than anybody else's, we can fold him in.
"There's a lot to think about. But how he does in this next week probably will tell us an awful lot.''
This will mark Eovaldi's first Opening Day start in his 10-year career.
_____________________
_________________________
_______________________
___________________________