Chaim Bloom, Boston Red Sox (Photo by Billie Weiss/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images)
MLB Rumors: Red Sox regret calling up Matt Dermody
The Boston Red Sox gave pitcher Matt Dermody a spot start last week due to some injuries in their starting rotation. Normally, that wouldn’t be a big story, but Boston didn’t do their homework.
Homophobic tweets from Dermody surfaced prior to his start, which offended many Red Sox fans, especially those in the LGBTQ+ community. Red Sox executive Chaim Bloom regrets the fact that Dermody received a start with the team, despite the fact he was sent down shortly thereafter.
“We pride ourselves on doing the right due diligence so that we can have the right conversations around these things. We realized as this was unfolding [after the call-up] that a process that is normally pretty robust missed some things,” Bloom told the Globe’s Alex Speier. “There were other concerning things on social media. We usually don’t miss these types of things. In this case we did.”
Dermody allowed three runs over four innings in his lone appearance, and was sent back to Worcester afterwards.
“We’re getting our arms around what the right steps are with respect to the new info, or at least the info that’s new to us,” said Bloom. “That’s obviously a process that we’ll need to go through to figure out the best way to address it and take it into account. We certainly take it very seriously.”
In this day and age, racist and/or homophobic tweets are bound to surface on social media for any public figure, even a young pitcher making his first start with the Boston Red Sox. Dermody and Bloom found this out the hard way.
