Earlier this week Alex Cora said he\u2019d been told Triston Casas\u2019 season-ending knee injury wasn\u2019t a worst-case scenario, but at the time he wasn\u2019t in a position to comment on what that meant for the first baseman.<\/p>\n
Asked to elaborate on Wednesday, Cora said that while the injury apparently could have been worse, it\u2019s still serious enough that Casas may not be fully healthy in time for next spring training.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom everything I\u2019m hearing there\u2019s a chance, but not 100%,\u201d Cora said.<\/p>\n
Regardless of how long the recovery ultimately takes, Casas faces a long and difficult road back, and in the meantime the Red Sox need to figure out how they\u2019re going to manage first base in the meantime. Despite rampant speculation about Rafael Devers possibly getting a look, Cora insisted that for now the club plans to roll with Romy Gonzalez and Abraham Toro at the position.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to give Romy and Toro the chance to play. We will. I think they can be a good platoon situation kind of, they\u2019re athletic, they\u2019re good hitters, and let\u2019s give them a chance and see what happens,\u201d Cora said. \u201cAnd if it doesn\u2019t work out \u2014 and that\u2019s not what we\u2019re hoping for \u2014 then we\u2019ll look for other avenues to improve that position.\u201d<\/p>\n
Entering Wednesday Gonzalez had been among the more productive hitters in the Red Sox lineup, batting .327 with an .831 OPS in 16 games played. He\u2019s also one of the fastest players on the team, but while he\u2019s most of the most experienced first basemen the Red Sox have, he\u2019s still only played 31 career games at the position through his first five big league seasons.<\/p>\n
Cora said Gonzalez has made considerable strides defensively, but that he\u2019s still learning on the fly.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot better than last year, he\u2019s still working on a few things,\u201d Cora said. \u201cObviously he\u2019s going to see some plays that he hasn\u2019t seen in the handful of games he\u2019s played at first but he\u2019ll keep learning and he\u2019ll keep getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toro is in a similar boat, having played 16 career games at first in seven MLB seasons, but one strength the 28-year-old brings is his ability to switch hit. That will allow the Red Sox to mix and match as needed, particularly late in games, Cora said.<\/p>\n
As for the Devers question, Cora previously shut down the possibility by saying he doesn\u2019t plan to discuss the matter with his slugger, but Wednesday he softened his stance during an appearance with WEEI in which he said things could change over time.<\/p>\n
Cora expanded on that thought with reporters prior to the game, saying they\u2019re comfortable with Devers\u2019 production as a DH and they\u2019d rather give Gonzalez and Toro a look for the time being than disrupt his routine again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think right now the most important thing is he\u2019s very comfortable with where he\u2019s at, and we\u2019re very comfortable with what he\u2019s doing,\u201d Cora said. \u201cHis production is really good, coming to the season that was the red flag, everyone was talking about is he going to get used to it, can he DH because he\u2019s not playing third base, he needs to play third for him to hit. Well, no. He doesn\u2019t need to play third base or first base to hit.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously things might change, but as of now I think Toro and Gonzalez make sense for us and let Raffy be Raffy,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd I\u2019m very happy with the production, you take away the Texas series, and I know we cannot take it away, but he\u2019s been one of the best hitters in the big leagues. The walk rate is up there, the strikeouts are going down, he\u2019s hitting the ball hard and he\u2019s producing. For now I keep saying he\u2019s my DH and I\u2019m very happy with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Injury updates<\/p>\n
Richard Fitts (right pectoral strain) is scheduled to throw another bullpen on Thursday, and Cora said he\u2019s feeling \u201ca lot better.\u201d Cora added that he isn\u2019t sure when the right-hander will begin a rehab assignment but that the club is much more comfortable with his situation compared to when the injury first took place. \u2026 Kutter Crawford (right patellar tendinopathy) is scheduled to throw another live bullpen session in Fort Myers on Friday, but Cora said he also isn\u2019t ready to begin a rehab assignment. \u2026 Walker Buehler played catch on Wednesday and is expected to throw a bullpen on Thursday. Barring any setbacks, Cora hopes the right-hander will be able to rejoin the Red Sox rotation for either the last game in Detroit next week or early in the ensuing homestand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this week Alex Cora said he\u2019d been told Triston Casas\u2019 season-ending knee injury wasn\u2019t a worst-case scenario,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[2047,5,141,48,2542,4,863,89,2543,1083,1946],"class_list":{"0":"post-9016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-red-sox","8":"tag-abraham-toro","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-boston","11":"tag-boston-red-sox","12":"tag-bostonredsox","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-rafael-devers","15":"tag-red-sox","16":"tag-redsox","17":"tag-romy-gonzalez","18":"tag-triston-casas"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114468862481077003","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9016","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=9016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}