Red Sox place Early on IL with left elbow inflammation

BOSTON -- The Red Sox, humming along in the starting rotation of late, will be down a man in the coming weeks.

Connelly Early, one of three lefties in the team’s surging starting five, was placed on the 15-day injured list on Wednesday, the day after he exited his start in an 8-1 loss to the Nationals following four scoreless innings with left shoulder soreness.

The decision to put Early on the IL was made a couple of hours prior to him undergoing an MRI, which the Red Sox will await results on to determine the severity of the injury.

Either way, the club felt it was a no-brainer to shut the 23-year-old down through the All-Star break.

“Yeah, he comes out of the game. There's soreness,” said Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy. “He's feeling better today but it's still a little sore. So with one more start remaining prior to the All-Star break -- it’s not just the start right, it's like, [are we really] going to have this guy go out in two days and throw a side? That's not something we're going to do with that kid.

“Connelly will tell you that he fought to not have it happen. But between that and having to use as much bullpen as we did and some of the moves we had to make to make sure we got arms, that's an easy decision to make sure you take that out of his hands and do right by him."

Earlier in the day, the Sox designated veteran reliever Tommy Kahnle for assignment. The club also activated lefty Jovani Morán from the 15-day IL and recalled lefty Alec Gamboa from Triple-A Worcester in corresponding moves.

As for who fills in for Early in the rotation, the Sox have options and time to make a decision.

Boston has team off-days on Thursday and Monday. That means they could stay with their current four of Sonny Gray, Ranger Suarez, Payton Tolle and Jake Bennett until the final series before the All-Star break, which starts on July 10 in New York against the Mets.

Left-hander Patrick Sandoval, who has made 100 career starts but none since undergoing Tommy John surgery midway through the ‘24 season while with the Angels, seems like a top candidate to make a start in New York.

Sandoval will make what could be the final start of his Minor League rehab assignment on Saturday and the team hopes he can throw “north” of 70 pitches, as Tracy put it.

What about Brayan Bello? The righty, who was surprisingly optioned to Triple-A Worcester early last month, is taking his scheduled turn for the WooSox on Wednesday night.

The Red Sox have a designed program to get Bello back on track, so they might not want to short-circuit that and rush him back to the Majors.

“I think at the moment, it's about him continuing to take down starts, keep attacking the offspeed,” said Tracy. “And they're moving along nicely with him. For right now that's the case. But he's not out of play by any means. It’s not like, ‘Oh, he's not going to be here again.’ There's all kinds of things you can do with the rotation leading into the break. So we're still talking about Brayan, but right now he's taking on that start today and we're making progress there.”

Early said he felt the discomfort on his final pitch of his abbreviated start on Tuesday.

“It's tough,” said Early. “I thought I was throwing the ball really well. I felt really good going into the game, so just a little unfortunate thing that happened there.”