Turns out reports of Rich Harden becoming a member of the Red Sox were premature after all.
Multiple outlets are reporting this morning that the deal between the A’s and Red Sox that would have sent the veteran right hander to Beantown is in fact off this morning. Harden has reportedly been told he will make his next scheduled start for the A’s on Tuesday.
The deal is believed to have fallen through over medical reports suggesting that Harden might be an injury risk heading down the stretch. To the casual observer, given Harden’s current state of health, this might be a bit of a surprise. To anyone who follows the game closely though, it is not.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that he’s been on the disabled list ten (!) times over the course of his career. ESPNBoston.com reports that the injuries haven’t been limited to one part of his body either, that Harden’s injury history reads like a game of Operation. Since 2004, he’s been sidelined with maladies to body parts ranging from his hip to his elbow, and the injury bug bit hard early this year as well.
Harden didn’t make his first start of the season until this month, having been disabled since Spring Training with a strained lat muscle. In five starts since coming off the DL, he has been solid (2-1, 4.30 ERA, 3:1 strikeout to walk ratio in 29.2 innings) and probably could have been a solid contributor to a contender to the Red Sox’ rotation, which could use some help as they try to hold off the Yankees for the AL East title.
While Harden has shown flashes of brilliance over the course of his career, it’s easy to understand Larry Lucchino and Theo Epstein’s concerns over his injury history. Despite all that talent, Harden has only thrown more than 150 innings once in his career, and that was back in 2004 when he won a career-high 11 games. That stat is also telling — despite his enormous amount of talent and potential, Harden has never won more than 11 games in a single season over the course of his nine year career. He’s only cracked double digits in the win column three times.
There’s no doubt that he could, someday, contribute to a pennant-winning effort. But given his injury history, he’s going to have to show teams that he can stay healthy for an extended period of time before they decide to invest anything more than the bare minimum in him.
