The Red Sox will purchase the contract of righty Kyle Kendrick to start on Thursday, as Tim Britton of the Providence Journal was among those to report on Twitter. It seems the organization will open a 40-man spot by placing an injured player (likely Tyler Thornburg) to the 60-day DL.

Kendrick, 32, hasn’t seen the majors since a woeful stint with the Rockies two seasons ago. But he is the clear veteran option for the organization, which was already missing David Price from its rotation when Steven Wright went down to a knee injury.

It’s not yet clear just how long Wright will be out. But he is said to be seeing a specialist for a second opinion on the knee, as Evan Drellich of CSNNE.com tweets, which could at least hint there’s some potential consideration of a surgical option of some kind.

Though Kendrick hasn’t fared well thus far at Triple-A, with a 6.00 ERA over 27 innings, he does carry a solid-enough mix of 6.7 K/9 against 1.7 BB/9. The less-experienced alternatives — Brian Johnson and Henry Owens — have outperformed Kendrick and already have 40-man spots, but Boston evidently would prefer to see them continue refining their work in the upper minors.