On Thursday, the Red Sox made a somewhat surprising move, optioning Franchy Cordero to Worcester. As we mention in the linked post, it’s not that Cordero being demoted came out of nowhere, but rather that there wasn’t a totally logical replacement. The guess was that they were just calling up another reliever to get back to their 14-man pitching staff. That is indeed what happened, as the team called Colten Brewer back up from Triple-A.
This was the most straight-forward of the possible moves. There’s a fair argument Brewer was not the most talented option available to him in Worcester’s bullpen, but he was only one of two players who was already on the 40-man roster.