Entering Wednesday night, the Boston Red Sox are five games back of the third and final Wild Card spot in the American League with 11 games to go and two more teams ahead of them.
Their playoff hopes are all but gone, but the Red Sox could still make use of the time left in their regular season, by calling up young infielder Vaughn Grissom from Triple-A Worcester for the 10 games remaining after Wednesday night's game.
The 23-year-old has had a rough season since Boston traded Chris Sale, who will likely win this year's National League Cy Young Award, for him during the offseason. He started off the year with an injury and then was diagnosed with an illness that delayed his debut for the team again. He appeared in just 23 games for the Red Sox, hitting .148 with a .367 OPS and three RBIs before landing on the injured list again with a hamstring.
When Grissom was healthy he was optioned to Triple-A, and he's been really good there recently. In his last 20 games for Worcester, Grissom has hit .382 with a 1.074 OPS, four home runs, 22 RBIs and four stolen bases.
Boston will have options for second base next year with Grissom and top prospect Kristian Campbell likely vying for the spot out of spring training if no other moves are made before then. Recalling Grissom to the big league club would get him more opportunities to face MLB pitching and could give the club more insight into what they need to do this offseason.
For the rest of the year, Grissom could man second base, and the Red Sox could switch off between Tyler O'Neill and Masataka Yoshida at designated hitter and move Ceddanne Rafaela back to center field.
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