Tanner Houck faced live hitters Tuesday, for the first time since last year’s elbow surgery, and the workout put the Boston Red Sox right-hander back in the mix for a 2026 return.
Boston is still piecing together its stretch-run pitching staff, and every step forward in Houck’s rehab now lands with significant implications for a rotation that has needed reinforcements much of the year.
Houck threw live batting practice earlier Tuesday in Fort Myers, according to MassLive’s Chris Cotillo, who wrote that the right-hander is “in the picture” to pitch again before the 2026 season ends.
GettyInjured pitcher Tanner Houck #89 of the Boston Red Sox.
Tanner Houck’s Return Timeline Takes Shape
Ian Browne of MLB.com confirmed the development in a follow-up post, noting Houck faced hitters for the first time since going under the knife.
Houck hasn’t pitched in a major league game since his last big-league outing on May 12, 2025, a short, rough start against Detroit that closed out a miserable stretch. He finished that abbreviated season 0-3 with an 8.04 ERA and a 1.70 WHIP over just 43 2/3 innings before Boston shut him down for good.
The Red Sox 2017 first-round draft pick, 24th overall, underwent hybrid UCL reconstruction last August, a modified Tommy John procedure that also included a flexor tendon repair. Houck spent the winter and spring on a throwing program, graduated to bullpens by midsummer and only now has reached the live-hitter stage teams treat as a genuine return marker.
Interim manager Chad Tracy addressed the progress in early August, saying Houck was already working through multiple bullpen sessions each week and closing in on a shot at live hitters, with a late-season activation still on the table. Tracy didn’t hedge on what Houck could mean if he gets there.
“That guy can help you,” Tracy said, according to MassLive.
Boston Red Sox’s Path Back for Tanner Houck
A return this season would almost certainly mean the bullpen rather than the rotation. More than 15 months removed from his last pitch, Houck has no realistic path to stretching back out to a starter’s workload before October, and Boston’s rotation has since been restocked.
Houck made the All-Star team in 2024, posting a 3.12 ERA and 154 strikeouts over 178 2/3 innings behind a heavy sinker-slider mix built for ground balls, and a shortened relief role could let him lean on that stuff in high-leverage spots without carrying a fifth or sixth inning. The Missouri product, a first-round pick out of Collinsville, Illinois, in 2017, has spent his entire six-year career in a Boston uniform, working as both a starter and a multi-inning reliever depending on what the roster has needed.
He’s had physical setbacks before, including a back injury that ended his 2022 season early and a facial fracture from a comebacker in 2023, so a clean return would hardly be his first test of durability.
Boston controls Houck through 2027. He signed a one-year, $4.15 million deal in January to avoid arbitration, one of several Red Sox players the club re-signed that month rather than take to a hearing. He’ll be arbitration-eligible once more in 2027 before reaching free agency for the first time after that season.
Command, velocity and durability remain open questions after a surgery of this magnitude, and Boston has been careful not to promise anything. But the fact that Houck is throwing to hitters at all this late in the summer keeps a September bullpen cameo squarely in play.
Red Sox $4 Million All-Star Starter ‘In Picture’ to Return Before Playoffs