Red Sox Get Out Ahead Of Tanner Houck Rumors

What are the Boston Red Sox going to do with Tanner Houck when he returns to the organization?

The safe bet is that he will be back in the rotation when he’s able to make the jump back to the majors. Although this is the case, it was shared on Friday that Houck’s next outing will be behind an opener out of the bullpen for the Triple-A Worcester Red Sox. Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow addressed the noise immediately and shared that this isn’t a hint of his role for when he returns to Boston.

"For right now, it's more like let's just see by changing the situation a little bit, changing his mentality a little bit, we can push the intensity, we get a little bit different results," Breslow said as transcribed by WEEI's Rob Bradford. "From the injury standpoint, he's making really good progress. I don't think this is signaling he's going to pitch out of the bullpen, and he's not going to start. Let's just mix this up a little bit. Sometimes warming up in the bullpen, coming out of the 'pen, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to sprint and not going to jog and let's see what happens...

"He has shown he can be an All-Star caliber pitcher and that's going to be his most value. Down the road, we'll figure out how all the pieces come together. I think right now, let's just try and introduce this new challenge and see how he responds to it."

Houck is working his way back and hasn't made an appearance for Boston since May 12th.