BOSTON, July 30 -- The 95-mph fastball found Curtis Mead's left wrist in the fourth inning of his Red Sox debut, and by Tuesday morning the answer to everything Boston had spent the weekend trying to solve was in the hands of a specialist.

Mead, acquired from the Washington Nationals on Saturday in exchange for left-hander Connelly Early, was placed on the 10-day injured list with a broken wrist after an MRI on Tuesday contradicted what post-game X-rays had suggested the night before. The initial imaging came back negative. Interim manager Chad Tracy chose his words carefully after the game. "He's sore," Tracy said. "A little sore, but at least right now it looks like we dodged a bullet, maybe." They had not.

The follow-up MRI confirmed...