Ottavino allowed one hit and struck out two over a scoreless inning in Wednesday's spring game against Atlanta.

EDGE Analysis

Ottavino made his spring debut in Grapefruit League play, following starter Matt Andriese in the fourth inning. He's competing to be Boston's closer along with Matt Barnes, who was impressive in his spring debut earlier this week. Ottavino has 19 career saves over 460 relief appearances and briefly served as a closer for a couple of stretches with Colorado in 2015 and 2016. Boston manager Alex Cora reiterated to Ian Browne of MLB.com that a closer will not be named until later in spring training, but the manager said Ottavino will be given the ball for clean innings, facing both righties and lefties.