The Boston Red Sox made a late-night trade for a bullpen arm, and it’s a bit of a puzzler.

No one can question that the Boston bullpen has been overworked. Not only did they need reinforcements for this weekend against the New York Yankees, but with Justin Slaten recovering slower than the team hoped, they have to be in tryout mode for the next few weeks.

Few would have expected, however, that chief baseball officer Craig Breslow would take a liking to a Minnesota Twins righty with an ERA of 8.88.

On Wednesday, the Red Sox acquired reliever Jorge Alcala from the Minnesota Twins in exchange for 21-year-old third baseman Andy Lugo, who was playing for the High-A Greenville Drive. Robert Murray of FanSided was the first to report the trade via X (formerly Twitter).

MassLive’s Chris Cotillo confirmed that Lugo was heading to Minnesota in the deal.

Alcala, 29, allowed 24 earned runs in his 24 1/3 innings with the Twins this year. That includes eight earned over his last two innings, spanning a pair of outings on Jun. 6 and 10. He’s been worth -1.0 bWAR, a crazy-poor pace for a reliever, but he does have 28 strikeouts (10.4 K/9).

Alcala’s average fastball velocity sits just below 97 miles per hour, and it has good expected slats (.143 xBA). He also features a slider that’s been hit hard this year, a decent curveball, and a sinker that’s been destroyed to the tune of a .909 slugging percentage.

Meanwhile, Lugo had a .265 average and a .757 OPS in 44 games for the Drive this season, including four home runs.

These trades don’t always get remembered years down the road, but perhaps the Red Sox see something in Alcala’s pitch mix they think they can leverage. And at the very least, he’ll be able to save some of his teammates’ UCLs over the next few weeks.

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