BOSTON – The Boston Red Sox placed right-hander Chris Martin on the 15-day injury list Wednesday because of anxiety.
The 38-year-old Martin told the team about his anxiety over the weekend.
The move was retroactive to Sunday. Martin last pitched on May 30 against Detroit, giving up four hits, including two home runs, and three earned runs in an inning of work. He has a 4.22 ERA in 21 appearances this season.
“With being respectful of the situation, he felt like it was manifesting in some physical ways that were keeping him from competing at the level that he’s used to in terms of fatigue and energy and recovery and sleep and some of those types of things,” Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said.
Breslow believes the time on the IL will help Martin return to the roster at full health.
“We’ll make sure that it’s sufficient,” he said. “I think a couple of things that are important to get across, I think that we should applaud Chris’ willingness to speak up and confront this challenge head on. As an organization, we fully support that and have a bunch of resources here including the mental health program that’s intended to help players and staff address situations like this.”
A former major league pitcher, Breslow said the leagues and teams across sports have done a good job of destigmatizing these types of situations.
“I do think that teams now are exhausting resources on building out mental health and behavioral health programs that are maybe a little bit different than the traditional mental skills sports psychology domains that teams had spent time with in the past,” he said. “Mental health is a really, really important piece of not just athlete well-being but people well-being. It’s critical.”
Breslow said the demands of a baseball season — the demands of a season in any sport, really — can at times be overwhelming and it’s important for everyone to have the needed resources in place.
Martin has a 3.42 ERA in 345 career games spanning 11 years with Colorado, the New York Yankees, Texas, Atlanta, the Chicago Cubs, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Red Sox. He spent the last two seasons with Boston.
To fill Martin’s spot on the roster, the Red Sox recalled right-hander Zack Kelly from Triple-A Worcester.
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