Red Sox
Devers’s shoulder injury has lingered all season long, and it appears the star slugger will be put on the shelf to avoid a more serious injury.
The end of the Red Sox season went from bad to even worse on Friday night.
Not only were Boston’s already slim-to-none playoff odds dashed even further by an extra-innings loss to the Minnesota Twins, but star Red Sox slugger Rafael Devers appeared to reach his limit with the shoulder injury he’s battled through all season long.
Following Boston’s latest defeat, Red Sox manager Alex Cora was asked about Devers’s health. Devers was pulled late in the game Friday, and Cora gave a less-than-optimistic answer to the simple question: Is Devers OK?
“No, he’s not. … Probably this is it for him,” Cora told reporters, per The Boston Globe‘s Alex Speier.
Devers will get an MRI on his right shoulder on Saturday morning to pinpoint the severity of the injury.
The 27-year-old tweaked the shoulder in spring training and played through nearly all of 2024 with the ailment. He cited the injury as one of the reasons he wasn’t participating in the MLB’s Home Run Derby over the All-Star break, so it was serious enough at that point to take the risk.
Since late August, Devers has been in an offensive slump. Though he claimed that his skid wasn’t related to the injury, something has clearly been off of late. So, with just eight games remaining in Boston’s regular season, it seems likely based on Cora’s comments that Devers won’t be gutting out any more pain this year.
Devers debuted for the Red Sox in 2017 and has been a staple slugger for years. His value goes far beyond eight almost certainly meaningless games as Boston closes out an abysmal second half of the season, yet another year missing the playoffs.
Thus, Boston will play out 2024 without its leading slugger, and hope to welcome his bat back into the lineup on Opening Day in 2025, barring any major surgery on the shoulder in the offseason.
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