NEW YORK -- After sitting out eight straight games, outfielder Alejandro De Aza found himself in the starting lineup for the second time in the past two days Sunday.
"I figured that it would be fair to get him a couple of days in a row," said interim manager Torey Lovullo. "Relating to my own experience as a bench player, it was always nice to have type of situation where you start to feel something at the end of the first day, you can apply those concepts the next day.
"He's a productive player for us. He is part of this roster. We're 25 men deep. You can see what Josh Rutledge has done in the absence of Brock Holt and helped us win baseball games. A lot of the sahme thinking from my part. I want to be fair to all of these players. I want to give them all a chance and he's a good player who deserves a chance.''
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Hanley Ramirez (right shoulder) remained out of the lineup for the third straight game.
"Hanley's doing OK,'' said Lovullo. "He's working on his conditioning and his body to keep himself in as good a shape as he possibly can and also doing some right shoulder exercises to strengthen it. He's just day-to-day, depending on how his work day goes. We want to get him in there as soon as we possibly can but we don't want to put him him in harm's way.''
Catcher Ryan Hanigan was also out again after being scratched Saturday afternoon with a sore calf.
"He felt like he could play, he wanted to play,'' said Lovullo of Hanigan Saturday, ''but we didn't want to put him in a situation where he came out of the game in the fourth inning and he wasn't available to us. So we just switched (Hanigan and Blake Swihart) and had him in an emergency role and that will continue today as well.
"He's doing well, improving. Hopefully, we'll see him in there hopefully sooner than later.''
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Dustin Pedroia is "spot on'' with his work, according to Lovullo and will be examined by Red Sox doctors Monday to determine how he's recovring from the hamstring strain and plot a course for his return to the lineup.
"Up until this point, he's exactly where he needs to be,'' said Lovullo. "Light baseball activity, he's been ramping up and if all goes well I think he gets on his feet, runs the bases and gets more aggressive with a return-to-play program. What that timetable is? I think we'll know more tomorrow after he visits with our doctors.''
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Steven Wright is on a throwing program and getting ready to take his next concussion test.
"That throwing program is going good,'' said Lovullo, "and hopefully it's going to lead to him getting back into the rotation. BUt the first thing we have to do with Steven is have him pass this concussion test in three days.''
The Sox have had some discussions about going to a six-man rotation in September to help limit the innings for both Henry Owens and Eduardo Rodriguez.
Wright and Matt Barnes would be candidates to be added as the sixth starter, but Lovullo said the earliest that could happen would be Sept. 8.