3 Red Sox players who won’t be on the roster by May 1

The Red Sox have played four wild games and sit at 2-2. Roster changes before May 1 are definite with the way things have gone.

A tough one-run loss to the Pirates has the Boston Red Sox sitting at 2-2 four games into the season. Three of the four games they’ve played have been decided by one run, and all four have been extremely high scoring.

The Red Sox are a team with a decent ceiling and a low floor. If everything goes right, they can be a playoff team. If things go south, they’ll likely finish last in a loaded AL East.

For Boston to stay competitive they’ll have to manage their roster aggressively, and that comes with making moves. These moves could even come before May 1. Here’re three of them.

1) Red Sox players who won’t be rostered by May 1: Kutter Crawford

The Red Sox starting rotation is in very bad shape. Corey Kluber, Chris Sale, Tanner Houck, and Kutter Crawford all struggled in their first starts of the season. Brayan Bello, James Paxton, and Garrett Whitlock are all on the IL right now.

Whitlock should be back sometime next week, and Bello doesn’t seem to be too far behind. Even Paxton should be back by mid-May. Someone will have to go from the rotation, and Crawford seems like the obvious odd man out.

He allowed seven runs on eight hits in four innings of work. Three of those hits were home runs, two of which came off the bat of Bryan Reynolds. Giving up seven runs in four innings against a poor Pirates lineup isn’t the best way of saying “I deserve this spot.”

Crawford could potentially move to the bullpen but will likely want him to stay stretched out with how fragile pretty much everyone in this rotation is health-wise.