Drew, Bradley remain out of lineup in Baltimore

BALTIMORE -- For the second straight night, the Red Sox played the Orioles with a starting lineup that didn't include shortstop Stephen Drew or center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr.

The absences were for very different reasons. Drew is sidelined with a right oblique issue after playing just four Major League games in his return to the Red Sox.

With lefty Wei-Yin Chen pitching for the Orioles on Wednesday, manager John Farrell might take a conservative approach and get Drew one more day off, with an eye toward a return to action Thursday against the Indians.

"There's still a little bit of tightness, and it's one of those we all feel -- it's one of those situations where if we were to push this, it could aggravate it and we could be looking at certainly more time than we're dealing with a day-to-day situation right now," said Farrell.

For Bradley, the break comes at a time when the outfielder is slumping mightily at the plate. The two days off were Bradley's first two games out of the lineup since May 21 against the Blue Jays.

How has Bradley spent the down time?

"He is continuing to work on some of the swing mechanics that he's been going through with [assistant hitting coach] Victor [Rodriguez]. I would expect this is a couple of days for him to kind of catch his breath a little bit," said Farrell. "Look at him being back in the lineup tomorrow against Chen, who he's had some success against. Realize he's also done OK against Tillman, but felt like he needed a couple of days just to kind of regroup."