Red Sox Could Open Season Without Three Expected Starters After Latest Injury
Some key members of the Boston Red Sox's rotation already are starting to break down in the early parts of spring training.
The highly-anticipated first start of James Paxton's season started off strong but was cut short due to injury -- something the 34-year-old hurler has become accustomed to.
Paxton threw 1 2/3 scoreless innings with a strikeout of superstar shortstop Carlos Correa and did not allow a hit or walk. Unfortunately, Paxton pulled his hamstring on his second-to-last pitch and had to leave the game early.
While the muscle pull/strain appeared to be minor and his early exit precautionary, Paxton has not earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to injury.
The Red Sox were already dealing with a forearm strain to Brayan Bello earlier in camp and Garrett Whitlock's offseason hip surgery rehabilitation. It appears that all three could start the season on the injured list.
"(The) Red Sox are going to be insanely careful with their starters in camp," MassLive's Chris Cotillo tweeted Friday. "Too many injury questions to push it. Even if Whitlock, Bello and Paxton are all dealing with minor things, they might miss Opening Day (and potentially not much longer). Sox have two off days in the first nine days.
"Sox feel like (Kutter) Crawford is a capable major league pitcher and that (Josh) Winckowski, (Chris) Murphy, (Bryan) Mata and (Brandon) Walter are all going to factor in, too. They think they are 12 deep rotation-wise... and hope not to find out."
On one hand, the Red Sox would be wise not to push their oft-injured starters with a 162-game regular season approaching. On the other, however, manager Alex Cora tends to bring his starters along very slowly, which has cost Boston in the past.
Last season the Red Sox crawled out of the gate to a 10-19 start. They went 68-65 the rest of the way -- a .511 winning percentage.
To be clear, the Red Sox had about a dozen more problems than the slow progression of their starting pitching last season but the aggressive hooks early in the year typically result in a burnt-out bullpen by the end.
It also set the course for a strange buy-sell trade deadline approach that could have been avoided with a few more wins.
Hopefully, this trio misses one or two turns at most to open the season before coming back in mid-April.
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