Thursday, September 1, 2011

Under The (Waiver) Wire

With the various external moves being made by the Red Sox at the waiver wire deadline (the signings of Conor Jackson, Joey Gathright and Trever Miller), it's easy to overlook potential roster additions from within the organization.

As the Globe's Peter Abraham rightly points out, one of these might be the almost forgotten Junichi Tazawa. Since coming back from Tommy John, Tazawa has been impressive at Pawtucket, going 13 1/3 innings and compiling a 1.35 ERA. While he's given up too many hits (12), his strikeout-to-walk ratio is a stunning 8.5:1.

Tazawa came to the Sox organization with a boatload of "upside potential". If he's called up today, he could prove to be the bullpen sleeper that makes a major contribution from here on in.