On Thursday, Boston Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke told reporters that left-hander Chris Sale has been diagnosed with a flexor strain. Although flexor strains are often precursors to Tommy John surgery, Sale is not expected to undergo the operation. Instead, he's been advised to resume throwing after a week's rest, at which point his progress will dictate the next step.

Regardless of what happens with Sale over the coming weeks, the Red Sox are certain to be without him entering the season. (Ditto Collin McHugh, whom they recently inked to a one-year deal.) Boston's rotation is certain to feature Eduardo Rodriguez, Nathan Eovaldi, and Martin Perez, provided they're healthy come March 26. After that, things are going to get dicey.

Per Roenicke's comments to the Boston Herald earlier this week, the Red Sox are hopeful someone (or someones, be it as may) emerges during the interim period to claim a spot. Shy of that, the Red Sox could entertain using an opener or two as a means of minimizing the exposure placed on their back-end starters. Top executive Chaim Bloom, who was hired away from the opener's progenitors, the Tampa Bay Rays, reportedly gave a presentation to the coaching staff recently about the ins and outs of using the mechanism.

Whatever the structure of the Red Sox's rotation, be it traditional or in the form of bulk pitchers checking in after the second or third inning, they have a lot of options to sort through. The problem is that they aren't very promising options.

Arguably the most intriguing candidate is Darwinzon Hernandez, a 23-year-old southpaw who threw 30 innings last season for the Red Sox. He has big-time stuff, and he used it to strike out more than 38 percent of the batters he faced. Unfortunately, he also has big-time command problems: he issued what amounted to nearly eight walks per nine innings during his stay in the Show. Barring a dramatic improvement, he's better suited in short spurts, where his tendency to miss bats can outflank his propensity for missing the zone.

Boston's other choices are considerably less exciting. There's Ryan Weber, a low-slot sinkerballer whose career 5.04 ERA is nearly larger than his strikeout rate (5.7); there's Matt Hall, a January trade addition who couldn't establish a foothold with the lowly Detroit Tigers; and there's Chris Mazza, Brian Johnson, among other options on and off the 40-man roster.

The Red Sox do have a few interesting prospects on the way (we mentioned both Bryan Mata and Tanner Houck in our system overview), but it's clear that rotation depth is again going to be a concern. You can see then why the Red Sox are entertaining alternate approaches, like the opener: playing by the book is unlikely to yield good outcomes.

Of course, the Red Sox can blame only themselves for this situation. They're the ones who traded David Price to save money, and who, with rare exception, elected against signing free-agent rotation help.