Red Sox closer Koji Uehara will miss the rest of the season after being diagnosed with a fractured wrist, the club announced. The team had expressed optimism after the right-hander was struck by a batted ball on Friday night, but further tests apparently revealed a significant injury.
Boston adds that Uehara, 40, “is expected to make a full recovery,” and the team will need him to do just that. He is already under contract for 2016, the back half of the two-year, $18MM deal he signed just before free agency opened following the 2014 campaign.
Despite cracking forty years at the start of the season, and losing about a tick on his average fastball velocity, Uehara has remained one of the league’s most reliably dominant bullpen arms. Through 40 1/3 innings, he owns a 2.23 ERA with 10.5 K/9 against 2.0 BB/9. While that represents a slight decline on the strikeout side and nearly a doubling of the absurdly low walk rate he carried over his first two years with the Red Sox, Uehara still generated a swinging strike rate (18.6%) commensurate with recent seasons.
While the news is disappointing, it seemingly comes at a manageable time. The Red Sox bypassed the chance to trade Uehara at the deadline despite being out of contention, but will have plenty of time to bring him back to health before next season. Of course, it remains to be seen what kind of recovery timeline will be required, not to mention how the somewhat unusual injury could impact the aging-but-excellent veteran.
Tough break… pun intended, but it still sucks for Uehara.
The Justin Masterson injury.. Koji should have never been in that game, only Masterson did what he was good at.. Putting runners on base.
No more with being DFA’d, though too late for Koji unfortunately.
Get better soon Koji… can’t wait to see Papi pick you up 90 times next year after wins
The mistake of the Sox not trading him at last year’s deadline keeps going
It’s doubtful it would have been worth it since his contract and the fact that chapman and kembral were kinda out there.
That’s true, but it’s also important to remember that both of those teams were on the fence about rebuilding. The Red Sox would’ve had the best reliever on the market by far.
Chapman and Kimbrel are still out there for winter trade possibilities, keeping Koji gives them a piece to build around to remake the god-awful bullpen for 2016. FO wants to be competitive.
I think the reasoning was that the FO still wants to be competitive in 2016, and the Red Sox have absolutely no reliable arms in the bullpen past Koji. It at least gives them someone to build around for the winter if they’re going to re-make the pen.
Reminding me more and more of 2012. Lousy season and players dropping like flies.
Good. Then we’ll win the World Series next year.
Worked well this season.
wow. this is really going to affect the red sox playoff push.
Why didnt they trade him at the deadline?
The world might never know?
man that was a bullet line drive that hit him, Uehara was the kinda of guy I thought the red sox were going to sell at the deadline.