Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Francona’s return unknown
CLEVELAND — Indians manager Terry Francona underwent a scheduled medical procedure for a gastrointestinal ailment on Friday and will likely miss the team’s threegame series against the Tigers.
At this point, it’s now known when Francona, a two-time World Series winner, will return.
President of baseball operations Chris Antonetti provided an update on the 61-year-old Francona, who has already missed 11 games this season with health issues. Francona recently revealed he’s had numerous surgeries in the last year for the condition.
Antonetti said Francona was still feeling “really uncomfortable” leading up to the procedure, which was performed at the Cleveland Clinic. The hope is the latest one will help him feel well enough to continue managing in 2020.
Antonetti was asked about the likelihood of Francona making it through the season.
“Tito said it the other day: He wants to do his best to try to manage as much as possible,” Antonetti said. “We don’t know exactly how likely that is. We continue to encourage him and try to remind him every step of the way that the most important thing is his health and well-being.
“We will continue to prioritize those and if that means there will have to be days away from the ballpark, then that’s what we’ll need to do and we’ll continue to do what we always do, which is come together and figure out how to work through things.”
Francona did not travel on the recent trip to Detroit and Pittsburgh.