{"id":592353,"date":"2026-02-25T15:51:35","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T15:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/592353\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T15:51:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T15:51:35","slug":"romy-gonzalez-unlikely-to-be-ready-for-opening-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/592353\/","title":{"rendered":"Romy Gonzalez Unlikely To Be Ready For Opening Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Sox utilityman Romy Gonzalez<\/a> has been behind in camp due to shoulder troubles. He received a platelet-rich plasma injection a couple weeks ago in hopes of being ready for Opening Day, but the righty-swinging infielder now tells Christopher Smith of MassLive.com<\/a> that he doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s realistic. Gonzalez is running and doing agility work but isn\u2019t fielding, throwing or swinging a bat yet. He says he won\u2019t begin hitting until next Friday (March 6) at the earliest.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point, I think the ramp-up would be a little too quick and it\u2019d be a disservice I feel like to myself and the team if I\u2019m not ready to roll and have a good build up,\u201d Gonzalez tells Smith.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old Gonzalez suffered a shoulder injury in one of the final games of the 2025 regular season. He spent the offseason rehabbing the injury and thought he was in a good place when the calendar flipped to 2026, but he began experiencing renewed discomfort<\/a> after ramping up his hitting program last month in preparation for spring training.<\/p>\n

Gonzalez is a key part of Boston\u2019s lineup, specifically against left-handed pitching. He\u2019s fresh off a career-best .305\/.343\/.483 showing that saw him pop nine homers in a career-high 341 plate appearances. The overwhelming amount of Gonzalez\u2019s damage came against left-handed pitching, which he torched for a .331\/.378\/.600 batting line (162 wRC+) in 143 plate appearances. His .286\/.318\/.400 line against righties (198 plate appearances) was solid as well, but even including that performance, Gonzalez is just a .243\/.267\/.349 hitter (65 wRC+) in 439 plate appearances versus fellow righties.<\/p>\n

If Gonzalez is indeed unavailable when the Red Sox\u2019 season opener rolls around on March 26, that would likely improve the chances that one of Nate Eaton<\/a>, Andruw Monasterio<\/a>, Kristian Campbell<\/a> or Anthony Seigler<\/a> makes the roster. Smith calls Monasterio the early favorite, but it\u2019ll obviously hinge on spring performances from the group. They\u2019re all vying for the final bench spot alongside backup catcher Connor Wong<\/a>, veteran utilityman Isiah Kiner-Falefa<\/a> and outfielder\/designated hitter Masataka Yoshida<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A healthy Gonzalez perhaps renders that competition moot, but it increasingly sounds as though there\u2019ll be at least one bench spot open \u2014 possibly more, depending on health or other transactions. The Red Sox have discussed their outfield glut in trades throughout the winter, with Jarren Duran<\/a> standing as the most commonly cited trade possibility. However, Boston has established a high asking price \u2014 understandably so \u2014 which has not yet been met. There\u2019s also been plenty of speculation about Boston trying to find a taker for a portion of Yoshida\u2019s contract, but with two years and $36MM yet to be paid out, that\u2019s a tall order.<\/p>\n

While the potential loss of Gonzalez is a blow to the team\u2019s depth and potency against lefties, there\u2019s no indication he\u2019s suffered any kind of setback or that he\u2019s looking at an especially long-term absence. He\u2019s making $1.6MM this season in the first of three arbitration seasons and is under club control through 2028.<\/p>\n

The Red Sox open with three games in Cincinnati, where they\u2019ll likely face a pair of lefties (Andrew Abbott<\/a>, Nick Lodolo<\/a>). They\u2019ll then head to Houston, where the Astros will deploy an all-righty rotation, before playing host to a Padres team that also looks set for an entirely right-handed starting staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Sox utilityman Romy Gonzalez has been behind in camp due to shoulder troubles. He received a platelet-rich…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[7583,24971,5,715,4,18368,1083],"class_list":{"0":"post-592353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-andruw-monasterio","9":"tag-anthony-seigler","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-kristian-campbell","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-nate-eaton","14":"tag-romy-gonzalez"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116132071899687117","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}