Craig Breslow updates Trevor Story, Nick Pivetta injury news
The celebratory vibes emanating from the Red Sox' home opener Tuesday were dampened a bit by a couple of injury updates involving key players.
During his meeting with the media, Red Sox manager Alex Cora revealed that there was some concern over the bone structure of Trevor Story's injured left shoulder. The evaluation is necessitating the shortstop getting a second opinion in Los Angeles with Dr. Neal ElAttrache. Surgery has not been ruled out.
Update: Just before the start of Tuesday's game, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow announced that Story will be undergoing surgery Friday.
"Kind of a recent development here, he is in fact scheduled to have surgery," Breslow said. "After speaking with our medical staff, further confirmation on a second opinion, and Trevor's decision to go forward, we had talked about some concern over the bony structure. He's got a fracture of the glenoid rim. So they'll have surgery on Friday to fix that with Dr. ElAttrache.
"What we're looking at is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of six months. Again, difficult to speculate specifically beyond that, but you can kind of do the math there."
Story is on the injured list with an injury classified as a dislocated shoulder, having landed awkwardly Friday night in Anaheim.
The Red Sox announced starting Nick Pivetta, who was supposed to start Wednesday against the Orioles, has been put on the injured list with a right elbow flexor strain. The Sox called up reliever Brennan Bernardino to take his spot on the active roster.
Pivetta has made two starts this season, giving up just one run over a combined 11 innings. He also struck out 13 while walking just one.
“He had, I think as most starting pitchers do, he gets treatment and maintenance and didn't seem like anything was out of the ordinary. But then brought this to us just in terms of the trouble recovering was really how he talked about it," Breslow said. "Didn’t’ really mention any symptoms in game, doesn't seem to have affected his performance. So I don't know that we have a firm start date, only recognizing that it got to the level that he felt like he needed to bring it to us.”
There is a possibility, said the Red Sox' CBO, that Pivetta would be ready to pitch when his 10-day injured list stint is up.
Breslow pointed to Chase Anderson or Cooper Criswell as possibilities when looking to fill in for Pivetta, although no such start will be needed until Saturday due to Monday's off day.
When asked about any possible correlation between Pivetta picking up a sweeper as part of his new repertoire, Breslow said there was little evidence to draw such conclusions.
"It’s really hard to draw a firm line between much of anything at this point," he said. "I think we can point to a number of possible contributors. Guys are throwing harder, they're throwing with more spin, they’re throwing more frequently. But the short answer is we really don't know. We need to acquire as much information as we possibly can. We need to use all of the data and technology available to us to monitor workloads and recovery. But the reality is, we don't have an answer yet."