Roster mechanics in Major League Baseball are complex, and that's the only caveat we have to acknowledge here. With that said, the Boston Red Sox demoting Tyler Samaniego to Triple-A before Sunday's game was bound to blow up in their faces.
When they reinstated Danny Coulombe from the injured list, the Red Sox had a limited number of options at their disposal. They could either send down Samaniego or Greg Weissert (who has been in the majors exclusively since 2024) or put Tyron Guerrero, Jovani Morán, or Ryan Watson on waivers.
Boston chose to demote Samaniego, seemingly for the simplicity of keeping everyone in the organization and not having four lefties in the bullpen. But Samaniego, who owns a 1.04 ERA in his first 17 1/3 major league innings, was arguably Boston's second-best lefty at the time of his demotion behind closer Aroldis Chapman.
Because baseball karma is real, the Red Sox wound up surrendering three earned runs in the sixth inning of Sunday's game to blow a lead against the Minnesota Twins, losing 6-5 to finish off one of their most embarrassing sweeps in recent memory.
Though it was two righties who gave up the three runs in Guerrero and Garrett Whitlock, one could argue fairly easily that having someone like Watson on the team for mop-up duty instead of Samaniego for more important assignments threw off the entire composition of the bullpen.
Effectively, Guerrero is in the majors right now instead of Samaniego because they chose to promote him before the Twins series started, optioning righty Zack Kelly to Triple-A in his place.
The implications will last longer than a day for the Red Sox, too. Samaniego has to remain in the minors for 15 days, unless the Red Sox lose another pitcher to the injured list instead.
Watson has hung onto his roster spot all season despite a 5.28 ERA, and the Red Sox have tailored his role to make sure he throws almost no important innings, because his Rule 5 status means he'd be offered back to the San Francisco Giants if he ever left the active roster for performance reasons.