Devers not able to shoulder the load
Valuable slugger misses game with injury
Rafael Devers’ name was conspicuously absent from Thursday night’s lineup, as the Red Sox continue to manage a nagging left shoulder issue.
“He’s battling with the shoulder,” Alex Cora said before the series finale with the Baltimore Orioles. “You can see on his swing … you can see his reactions, very similar to a few years ago with the elbow.”
This is the second time the shoulder has kept Devers out of the lineup within the first two weeks of the season; during the opening series in Seattle, he sat out Friday and Saturday and revealed the shoulder had been bothering him since spring training. The Red Sox are trying to avoid putting Devers on the injured list, but Cora wouldn’t rule it out. “Hopefully not,” he said.
“It’s too early to be grinding, that’s the way I see it,” the manager said. “He’s too important for us for him to be grinding with his swing and making it worse. He just felt yesterday, he needed a day … I know every day matters, but if he needs one, two, three (days) or if it’s an IL stint then so be it, but we have to take care of this.”
The middle infield continues to pull players into a black hole of injuries. After making his first start with the Red Sox on Wednesday, infielder Romy Gonzalez had his left wrist in a brace in the clubhouse the following afternoon and was scheduled for X-rays.
“He woke up this morning sore, it was on that play he made,” Cora said.
“It’s obviously pretty brutal,” he said of getting hurt in his first Red Sox start, “but thankfully, I don’t think it’s too serious so I don’t think it’ll be something that’ll take too long to heal from.”
With Trevor Story done for the year and Gonzalez “day to day,” how will the Red Sox reinforce the middle infield? “We got guys over there,” Cora said of Triple-A.
Despite the stretch of injuries, the manager was still in good spirits.
“(Coach) Ramon (Vázquez) is taking ground balls, too, I’ve been losing weight, so you never know, man,” he joked. “The minimum (salary) is a lot right now, so you never know.”
Reinforcements are also on the way in the form of utility-man Rob Refsnyder and infielder Vaughn Grissom. Refsnyder struck out in each of his three at-bats in his first rehab game with Triple-A Worcester on Wednesday, leading Cora to joke that it was good for him to get that kind of performance out of the way.
Grissom is scheduled to fly to Syracuse on Thursday evening to join the WooSox on their road trip. He’ll play his first rehab game Friday.
Mizuhara charged
Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter for Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, has been charged with bank fraud and accused of stealing $16 million from the two-time MVP.
According to a criminal complaint filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Mizuhara allegedly gained access to a bank account belonging to Ohtani and transferred funds to cover his gambling debts with an illegal bookmaking operation. The funds were transferred without Ohtani’s knowledge between November 2021 and January 2024, and Mizuhara was able to gain access to the account by impersonating Ohtani over the phone.
The complaint supports Ohtani’s assertion that he was a victim of “massive theft” and that the investigation did not produce any evidence of his involvement in gambling or knowledge of Mizuhara’s activities.
“Mr. Ohtani is considered a victim in this case,” said E. Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, in a press conference announcing the charges.
According to the complaint, Mizuhara began gambling with the sports book in September 2021 and began losing substantial sums of money. During that same period Mizuhara allegedly changed the contact information on Ohtani’s account to his phone number and an anonymous email account, and he also made phone calls to the bank falsely claiming to be Ohtani in order to authorize the wire transfers.
The bank account Mizuhara accessed is the one where Ohtani’s MLB salary was deposited. Ohtani’s other bank accounts were managed by his agent and a team of financial professionals, but Mizuhara didn’t allow them access to the one he’d taken control of, claiming it was “private” and that Ohtani didn’t want anyone else viewing it.
The complaint also details Mizuhara’s extensive betting history, alleging he placed 19,000 wagers between December 2021 and January 2024, nearly 25 bets per day. The bets averaged roughly $12,800 and records show Mizuhara had total winning bets of more than $142.2 million and total losing bets of more than $182.9 million, indicating a total net loss of more than $40.6 million. The records do not reflect any bets on baseball.
After Mizuhara’s gambling activity first came to light and he was subsequently fired by the Dodgers on March 20, the former interpreter allegedly admitted to stealing from Ohtani in an encrypted text message to his bookmaker. Following a text in which the bookmaker said “obviously you didn’t steal from him. I understand it’s a cover job I totally get it,” Mizuhara replied “technically I did steal from him. It’s all over for me.”
Mizuhara will be arraigned in federal court in Los Angeles in the coming days. If convicted Mizuhara faces up to 30 years in prison.