John Farrell excited about Boston Red Sox bullpen

The bullpen played a huge role in the Boston Red Sox winning the World Series last year.

Although the Red Sox lost two former closers, Andrew Bailey and Joel Hanrahan to season-ending injuries, Koji Uehara become a shut down closer and Junichi Tazawa and Craig Breslow gave the Red Sox solid innings.

This season, Andrew Miller returns from injury and the Red Sox added Edward Mujica and Burke Badenhop.

This makes manager John Farrell, a former pitching coach, very happy.

“They’ve got a long track record of (being) very good strike-throwers,” Farrell told Rick Weber of ESPN Boston. “They don’t create havoc on the basepaths by issuing base on balls. They’ve got an out pitch. They’ve been effective against opposite sides of the plate. They have characteristics that allow you to have trust in them. … We are set up to have a deep and quality bullpen.”

The Red Sox will begin spring training season on Thursday with a split squad double header against two local colleges, the Boston College Eagles and Northeastern Huskies, on Thursday.

They’ll take on the Minnesota Twins, who like the Red Sox, host their spring training in Fort Myers, Florida, on Friday.