Contreras in the Lineup, Question Mark on the Playoff Roster

Willson Contreras is back in the lineup for the final games of the regular season, which is good news for a Boston offense that has been scraping for runs. Whether he suits up for the Yankees series is a different question entirely, and nobody is answering it with confidence.

The concussion situation has been the through-line of Boston's September. I wrote about it back on the 14th when he returned, then again when he went back down. Now he's in again, day-to-day status and all, and the team is treating his regular-season appearances as a kind of extended evaluation. That framing matters. A few at-bats against late-season opponents is not the same as being cleared for a playoff roster, and the medical calculus around concussions doesn't move on the manager's timeline.

The stakes are plain enough. Contreras is one of Boston's three All-Stars this year, and the depth chart at first base gets thin fast without him — Nick Sogard and Mickey Gasper are the next options, and Gasper has been listed as out. If Contreras can't go in the wild-card round, Boston loses its most credentialed bat at a position that's already been patched together for most of the second half.

For now, he's in the lineup, and that's something. The next 10 days will tell us whether it's something that lasts.