Mark Prior Released By Red Sox
Late Thursday night, following the PawSox 5-4 loss to the Scranton-Wilkes/Barre Yankees, Mark Prior was informed that he had been released by the Red Sox.
The move was made in order to make room for Pedro Beato, acquired earlier that day from the Mets for catcher Kelly Shoppach.
Prior, 31, made 19 appearances for the PawSox this season, going 1-0 with a 3.96 ERA (11 ER/25.0 IP). With 23 walks, he averaged nearly a walk per inning, and, if you take away the brief one-third of an inning he recently pitched, Prior had walked 13 batters over his last nine outings.
The righty did strikeout 38 batters during his time with the PawSox, and was sitting between 90-92 mph with his fastball.
All the best to Mark, who is still relatively young. Needless to say, if he can make it back to the Major Leagues, it will make for a fantastic story. Unfortunately, it won’t come in a Red Sox uniform.
-AG
@aaronmgoldsmith
agoldsmith@pawsox.com
Prior last pitched in the Major Leagues with the Chicago Cubs in 2006 when he went 1-6, 7.21 ERA in nine starts while battling shoulder tendonitis. (Kelly O’Connor)
What a great article…if I wanted to know why the RedSox can’t get over .500. I am still POed about releasing Brandon Duckworth. Let me try to get in the managements way of thinking….Prior (and Duckworth) have better stats than 4 of the RedSox 6 MLB starters) but they release them. Yes, Prior walked an exceedingly amount of batters, but Aceves has walked almost 30 in his save appearances (and he is supposed to pitch only 1 inning a game). So what can the Sox do? It’s not an easy question to answer-but let me tell you starting here, it is not Bobby Valentines fault. He is a manager-he is not pitching up the 5 homeruns to the Yankees, or losing 7 games as a closing pitcher, or only scoring 3 runs a game. He is a manager, his job is to fire up the players and make a lineup. Now, he has don a poor job with his lineup and pitching roster. Aceves deserved to be the closer as much as I deserve an endless supply on money, and Beckett has looked like he is pitching for the softball team of St. Marys School for the Deft and Blind, And when Valentine tried to fire up his players the team went haywire. I can not solve the mystery as how to “fix” the RedSox, but they pay people a six digit salary to figure it out. But they should not keep releasing the people who are playing well and deserve a shot back up in the show. The way that the Sox are playing now, I thing the entire AAA term deserves a shot up in the MLB, and I swear that Matt Barnes would throw a better 6 innings than Beckett, I would weather see the Sox call up 3 MILB pitchers who could throw 3 innings without giving up 4 runs, than see the Sox lose another game due to a pitcher giving up 6 runs, 13 hits, 6 walks….