The Red Sox made it official Monday: Wyatt Olds is getting the call from Triple-A Worcester to make his MLB debut, with Boston needing fresh arms in the bullpen down the stretch.
This isn't a promotion out of nowhere. Left-hander Raymond Burgos had been leaned on hard, throwing 8 innings across 3 outings in barely a week, and Boston needed to give him a breather. Olds is the guy stepping in to soak up some of that workload.
Olds, a 27-year-old righty out of Oklahoma City who pitched collegiately at Oklahoma, was Boston's seventh-round pick back in 2021. He's bounced around as a starter and reliever in the minors before settling into bullpen work full-time since 2023, and his numbers this year at Worcester aren't eye-popping on the surface — a 5-6 record with a 5.33 ERA over 50.2 innings, though he's racked up 74 strikeouts and 5 saves in that stretch.
The stuff is why scouts still like him. Olds works with a fastball that touches the mid-90s and a slider with sharp late bite, the kind of raw arsenal that plays in a big-league bullpen even if his command has been inconsistent enough to keep him from a higher-leverage role at Triple-A.
For a Red Sox club trying to manage arms through the grind of a playoff push, that's exactly the profile they need right now — a hard thrower who can eat an inning or two and take pressure off the relievers who've been overworked. Olds' debut comes against Arizona, and how he handles his first taste of the majors will go a long way toward determining whether he sticks around Boston's roster or heads back to Worcester once Burgos is ready to return.