SAN FRANCISCO — The Red Sox made a roster move to balance their bullpen mix Saturday, activating right-hander Mauricio Llovera and optioning lefty Joe Jacques to Triple-A Worcester.
Llovera, who was acquired from the Giants in a minor trade Wednesday night, will be active against his former team Saturday afternoon. The 27-year-old has pitched well in both the majors and Triple-A this season. He has allowed one earned run in 5⅓ innings in the big leagues (1.69 ERA) and posted a 3.97 ERA while recording 29 strikeouts in 22 ⅔ Triple-A innings. The Giants designated Llovera for assignment last week when reliever Luke Jackson came off the injured list. The Red Sox pounced on an available player, shipping minor league righty Marques Johnson (the club’s 11th-round pick in 2022) to San Francisco in a deal that was finalized late Wednesday night.
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Manager Alex Cora envisions Llovera pitching a middle relief role ahead of high-leverage righties Josh Winckowski, John Schreiber, Chris Martin and Kenley Jansen.
“We’ll see where we’re at late in the game,” Cora said. “Good sinker, good slider. We’ll make sure he gets his feet wet here. We needed a righty and we got one. We feel like if he can execute what we want, he’s going to be able to get people out.”
Llovera is on to his third organization after totaling 29 appearances with the Phillies and Giants over the last four seasons.
“I’m just trying to keep doing what I’ve been doing before coming here,” Llovera said (through interpreter Carlos Villoria Benítez). “I think my sinker and slider are my best pitches and those are the pitches I use to attack the batters.”
Jacques, a minor league Rule 5 draft pick who was called up for his big league debut in mid-June, lasted almost two months in the majors, pitching to a 4.86 ERA (9 earned runs in 16 ⅔ innings) while striking out 13 batters and posting an encouraging 3.82 FIP. The southpaw walked just two batters in 14 appearances. Somewhat surprisingly, Jacques had reverse splits and was hit particularly hard by lefties. Left-handed hitters hit .444 (12-for-27) with a 1.259 OPS against him while righties posted just a .652 OPS.
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Jacques fell victim to a roster crunch. The Red Sox have four other lefties (Brennan Bernardino, Richard Bleier, Chris Murphy and Joely Rodríguez) in their bullpen and Bleier and Rodríguez do not have minor league options remaining.
Cora expects Jacques to be back in the majors before the end of the season.
“He was great. Another tough decision because we’ve got good players,” Cora said. “We made a big deal out of the save in Toronto, but you can see the stuff, the angle. He’s not afraid. He’s not scared. It was a tough one but like I told him, ‘Keep working on the things you’ve been working on here.’ He’ll be ready. At one point, I do believe he’s going to be part of this again.”
