Story expected to miss rest of season
Trevor Story’s season is almost certainly over.
After previously indicating that Story would receive a second opinion from famed orthopedic surgeon Dr. Neal Elattrache in Los Angeles, the Red Sox announced Story has a fractured glenoid rim and will move forward with shoulder surgery on Friday.
Craig Breslow made the announcement Tuesday afternoon, an hour before the Red Sox home opener. Though Breslow wouldn’t rule out a possible return, he acknowledged that it’s extremely unlikely Story plays again in 2024.
“What we’re looking at is probably in the neighborhood of six months,” Breslow said of Story’s recovery timetable. “Difficult to speculate specifically beyond that but you can kind of do the math there.”
Story suffered the injury while making a diving stop on a hard hit ball Friday night in Anaheim, and immediately after landing on his shoulder it was apparent he was in a lot of pain. Though Breslow said Story is expected to make a full recovery, losing the twotime All-star for the season will be a huge loss for a team that counted on him making an impact.
“Very significant, not going to hide from what he’s meant to this team defensively and we had full confidence that offensively he was going to contribute as well,” Breslow said. “Fortunately he’s emerged as a leader on this team and there is still going to be a way for him to positively impact it, unfortunately it just doesn’t seem like it’s going be on the field right now.”
Pivetta placed on IL
Two hours before the home opener, the Red Sox announced they’d placed Nick Pivetta on the 15-day injured list with a right elbow flexor strain.
The move, which is retroactive to April 6, is a major setback for the Red Sox, who already lost starting pitcher Lucas Giolito for the season. But while flexor strains can be a precursor to major elbow surgery, the club doesn’t believe Pivetta’s injury is serious.
“He noted that he was having some trouble recovering start to start and felt like this was a good opportunity to take advantage of off days early in the season, put him on the IL and just give us a chance to knock it down completely,” Breslow said.
Does that mean Pivetta could return when he’s eligible to come off the IL on April 21?
“I think that’s a reasonable goal,” said Breslow, who added that Pivetta has already undergone an MRI that showed his ulnar collateral ligament was intact. “Obviously it’s really difficult to put a firm timeline on these things but we think that’s reasonable.”
For Pivetta, who will become a free agent in the coming offseason, the ramifications of a serious elbow injury would be significant. Until now he’d been one of the game’s most durable starters, pitching between 133-179.2 innings in five of his seven 162-game seasons.
Since arriving in Boston at the 2020 trade deadline, Pivetta has been the club’s healthiest starting pitcher by far. Between ’21-’23, he pitched in 102 regular-season games, including 79 starts, averaging 26 starts and 159 innings per year. In ’22, his 33 starts tied for the Major League lead.
The right-hander, 31, dominated in his first two starts of the season, striking out 13, walking one, and only giving up a solo home run in 11 innings.
Elbow injuries are running rampant in the game this year, leading to conflict between the league and Players Association. In early March, Giolito underwent internal brace surgery to repair a UCL tear and flexor strain. Barely two weeks into the regular season, several pitchers around the league have seen their campaigns cut short by Tommy John surgery.
To fill his spot on the active roster, the Sox have recalled Brennan Bernardino from Triple-a. The lefthander, who pitched 2.1 innings for Seattle in his brief ’22 debut, was a steadying force on Boston’s pitching staff last year, making 55 appearances, including six starts (as an opener) and eight games finished. Over 50.2 innings, he posted a 3.20 ERA with 58 strikeouts, 18 earned runs and 18 walks.
Though Pivetta was scheduled to start Wednesday against the Orioles, the Red Sox can instead bump up Kutter Crawford to pitch on regular rest thanks to Monday’s off day. Garrett Whitlock and Tanner Houck can then go Thursday and Friday, but Saturday the Red Sox will need to make some kind of decision on who goes then. Recent acquisitions Chase Anderson, Cooper Criswell and Naoyuki Uwasawa would be potential candidates to fill Pivetta’s spot.
On the mend
Two Red Sox players who could be back on the field sooner rather than later are second baseman Vaughn
Grissom (groin strain) and outfielder Rob Refsnyder (broken toe), both of whom were back at Fenway Park for the home opener. They will each begin rehab assignments this week, joining either the Worcester Red Sox or Portland Sea Dogs on their respective road trips.
As far as how the team plans to address shortstop while Story is out, Red Sox manager Alex Cora said they expect to utilize platoons at both middle infield positions. At shortstop David Hamilton will play against righties and Romy Gonzalez against lefties, and at second base Pablo Reyes will play against righties and Enmanuel Valdez against lefties.
Ceddanne Rafaela could factor into the equation at shortstop, though Breslow said he expects he’ll still see the majority of his time in center field, and Cora said once Grissom is healthy they plan on reintroducing him to shortstop and giving him some innings at the position as well.