McAdam On Gresh & Zo: Red Sox Not Committed To Bard Returning As Starter
Sean McAdam of Comcast SportsNet joined 98.5 The Sports Hub's Gresh and Zolak in studio Thursday afternoon to talk about Daniel Bard's recent demotion to Triple-A.
Bard will start for the Pawtucket Red Sox Friday night at McCoy Stadium. While Bard is getting the start, do the Red Sox intent to bring him back as a starter?
"They are not committed to him starting when he comes back," said McAdam. "They are beginning to send signals that Daniel Bard may not come back as a starting pitcher. I don't think they want to make that determination; I don't think they want to say a whole lot about it publicly... they are sort of getting to the end of their rope here, thinking they gave this guy 10 starts, and they are not seeing the consistency."
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The tipping point came Sunday afternoon in Toronto, when Bard allowed five runs off just one hit to the Blue Jays, but issued six walks and hit two batsmen.
"He had no idea where his fastball was going, and when you can't command your fastball around the strike zone, it's time to start over at step one," McAdam said of Bard's outing north of the border.
"I think they did the right thing here, getting him off center stage," said McAdam. "But because it's Pawtucket, and only 50 minutes away, there is going to media there when he throws on Friday. It's not like he's going to be doing this on some back field in Fort Myers where nobody can watch, but it's not the same as being on the mound in Fenway in the middle of a regular season where you're hurting your club, as he was in the last few starts."
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