BOSTON -- On a night when Red Sox starting pitcher Junichi Tazawa brought little in the way of actual Major League stuff to the mound with him, the Boston bullpen was sure to take a double-hit when the originally designated long man, Brad Penny, asked for his release from the ballclub on Wednesday night.

That left Boston without a suitable Plan B when the 22-year-old clearly didn’t have it after two innings, and – as Sox manager Terry Francona often uses as a go-to phrase – put “them in a bind” in a 9-5 loss to the White Sox.

So after four innings from Tazawa, two innings from Manny Delcarmen and an inning from Ramon Ramirez, the Sox were forced to embrace the unavoidable and tossed a position player in to pitch the final two frames.

It was the second time this season that a hitter has turned pitcher for the Sox, with former outfielder Jonathan Van Every appearing in a game April 30 at Tampa Bay. This time it was shortstop reserve Nick Green, who is blessed with a strong right throwing arm, that got the call.

Green's flight of mound fancy was the only compelling shred of entertaining baseball on a night that was over before it began for Boston.

The hard-throwing Green has consistently flashed some impressive velocity with his arm while manning the shortstop position this season, and had previously told several reporters that he was once clocked as high as 92-mph on a radar gun.

“I feel like I could even throw harder, but I was trying to throw strikes,” said Green, who topped out at 90-mph but also walked three batters in two innings of emergency pitching work. “I just wanted to throw strikes, but my ball was moving all over the place. I was even trying to throw it with movement.”

So Green loosened up with outfielder Rocco Baldelli in the catacombs behind the Fenway Park around the fifth inning of a blowout loss, and then warmed up in the bullpen prior to his eighth inning appearance. While Green only threw 13 of 35 pitches for strikes in the two innings of work, he didn’t allow a single hit and walked only one batter in the two innings. It was the longest pitching stint for a Sox positional player since first baseman David McCarthy hurled two innings for the Sox back in 2005, and it was longest hitless stint for a Sox positional player since the immortal Eddie Lake did it twice during the 1944 regular season.

For the Sox, the positional tandem of Green and Van Every marks the first time that the Red Sox have employed two different position players to pitch since Doug Taitt and Jack Rothrock both pitched in during troubling times for the Olde Towne Team way back in 1928.

“He told me pretty early that I might (pitch),” said Green, who said he hadn’t pitched since roughly 1998. “At first I didn’t want to pitch, but we didn’t really have a choice. If I had to go out there and try to pitch because our pitchers couldn’t go, then that would be my only reason to pitch.

“I told (John Farrell) that I was going to pitch the eighth, and then asked him ‘who was going to pitch the ninth? I didn’t know I was going to pitch two innings. I didn’t know what to expect because I haven’t thrown to a catcher in 11 years. It was something I might never do again in a Major League game, so I had some fun with it.”

The only big problem for Green was the walk to former teammate Mark Kotsay. The shortstop showed a little bit of emotion after walking the White Sox first baseman/outfielder on four pitches.

"I was friggin pissed that I walked (Kotsay)," said Green. "I'll get him later."

Green even hit 90-mph a handful of times over the course of the two frames and impressed the ever-quotable Ozzie Guillen while the Chicago skipper was watching from the visiting dugout.

“I think they’re going to make a change,” said Guillen of Green and the Sox. “They might start having the Japanese guy back in the bullpen. You know, he impressed (me). That was pretty good. I think Francona has found another guy who can help him in the bullpen.”

When and if there’s another spot for Green to show off that golden arm, the shortstop might just pitch again and will be carrying a perfect big league 0.00 ERA right along with him.