The loss of closer Koji Uehara for the remainder of the year, while bothersome in the short term, isn't close to being the Red Sox' biggest bullpen issue.
Uehara's broken right wrist -- suffered Saturday night and properly diagnosed Monday -- will heal well before spring training, and barring something unforeseen, will return for his fourth season as Red Sox' closer.
But the injury serves to highlight a bigger problem: the current poor state of the Red Sox' bullpen, and their lack of a logical replacement for Uehara, who will turn 41 next April.
For now, Uehara's absence is a mere inconvenience. The lack of a suitable fill-in means that some save opportunities won't be converted, but that's hardly a major issue. With exactly 50 games remaining, a few blown saves here or there won't make much difference for the Red Sox, who are 12 games out of first, and just as significantly, six games out of fourth.
This year's replacement for Koji? Eyewash
The replacement next year -- should he become injured again, or experience a downturn in performance -- and beyond? A very big deal, and for now, a black hole.
At a time when bullpen's are becoming more essential and more dominant, the Red Sox are woefully out of step with the rest of baseball. The Kansas City Royals, the best team in the American League, also have the league's best bullpen. The New York Yankees, in first place in the East, have the most powerful one-two combination in either league. The St Louis Cardinals, with the best record in the game, have the deepest pen with four relievers owning ERAs under 2.00.
Boston Red Sox
See the connection? The best teams have good-to-great bullpens; bad teams have bullpens like the Red Sox.
Worse, it doesn't seem the Sox currently have the personnel to get better for 2016, making a bullpen renovation equally as important as a starting rotation upgrade.
At a time when bullpens routinely feature hard-throwers who sport fastballs that register 95 mph and above, the Red Sox don't have a single power arm in their major league bullpen. Junichi Tazawa comes closest, and he remains under the team's control as their eighth-inning set-up man.
Beyond that, the Sox have a host of relievers who barely crack 90 mph, let alone 95 mph.
The Red Sox were so eager to find someone with a swing-and-miss capability that they moved Matt Barnes to a relief role in the spring and gave him three different opportunities at the major league level. Barnes showed himself to be not ready for such a role, tagged for six homers in 22 1/3 innings, compiling a 5.64 ERA. Opponents batted .343 against him and slugged .586. Barnes is currently back in the Pawtucket rotation as the Red Sox scramble to build starter depth following injuries to Rick Porcello, Brian Johnson and Clay Buchholz and call-ups to Steven Wright and Henry Owens.
There aren't any other obvious options at Pawtucket, either. Heath Hembree has been ineffective and newcomer Ryan Cook, who's had past success at the big league level for Oakland, couldn't pitch himself out of Triple A for the first four months of the season.
When Porcello returns, that could free up Joe Kelly to get a look in relief, with the hope of harnessing some of the command and inefficiency problems that have plagued him as a starter.
Beyond that? The Red Sox will be forced to go into the free agent market or trade for bullpen help this winter. And given how relievers are notoriously up-and down from season-to-season, that will figures to be problematic.
The fact that the Red Sox had discussions at the deadline about the two best closers on the market -- San Diego's Craig Kimbrel and Cincinnati's Aroldis Chapman -- indicates the organization sees the need to stockpile quality arms, regardless of role or cost.
That will be put to the test more than ever this off-season. And unless the Red Sox can build a deeper, more powerful bullpen for 2016, it won't matter much that their closer will be healthy again well in advance of the start of next season.