Rafael Devers will undergo an MRI on his bothersome right shoulder today, Red Sox manager Alex Cora told reporters (including The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey) after yesterday’s 4-2 loss to the Twins in extra innings. Devers was removed from the game prior to the start of the 11th, and Cora said that the slugger had been trying to tough it out Friday despite tweaking his shoulder during pregame batting practice.
While Cora said “we’ll see where we’re at” following the MRI, “probably, this is it for [Devers]” this season. With just eight games remaining and the Red Sox all but officially eliminated from the playoff race, the club is likely to play it safe with the star third baseman.
Devers has been dealing with discomfort in both shoulders for a good chunk of the season, and it is fair to wonder if his determination to keep playing has contributed to his severe slump. The third baseman had an outstanding .296/.375/.587 slash line through his first 488 plate appearances, but has only a .172/.265/.212 slash line over his last 113 trips to the dish. Among all qualified batters since August 19, Devers’ 34 wRC+ is the third-worst in the league.
The Red Sox as a whole have a team wRC+ of 74 since August 19, ahead of only the lowly White Sox in that timespan. Boston had a 67-60 record as recently as August 22, but a 9-18 record over the club’s last 27 games has sunk the Fenway nine’s chances of a return to the postseason. Even though Devers’ slump dovetails pretty directly with Boston’s offensive slide, he is far from the only Red Sox hitter who hit a cold streak at exactly the wrong time.
Assuming this is indeed it for Devers’ 2024 season, he’ll still finish with a typically strong set of numbers — 28 homers and a .272/.354/.516 slash over 601 PA, with a 133 wRC+ and his third All-Star nod. Though a veteran of eight MLB seasons, Devers still doesn’t turn 28 until the end of October, and 2024 marked the first season of the ten-year, $313.5MM contract extension he signed with the Red Sox during the 2022-23 offseason. Since Devers is such a key component of Boston’s present and future plans, it’s a wise move to figure out as early as possible if Devers’ shoulder might require any kind of surgery heading into 2025.
Laseball Biker
It should definitely be over. Heal up and get ready for 2025.
Fever Pitch Guy
Lase – I totally agree! It was admirable of him to play through the pain, but now it’s a certainty the Sox are done so no reason for him to continue playing.
Besides, if the Sox go 2-6 they will finish the season with the exact same 78-84 record they had in 2022 and 2023 …. that would be kinda cool, and further proof they haven’t improved at all on the major league level since 2022.
Maybe some of the top prospects will change that in 2025 or 2026.
whyhayzee
If they’re going to be any good in 2025, they need to address pitching:
Pitcher
c/o Boston Red Sox
Fenway Park
Boston, MA
Fever Pitch Guy
hayzee – Starting pitching has been pretty good the past month. I am really impressed with Fitts, only the second player in MLB history to pitch a minimum of 5 innings in each of his first three major league games and not give up an earned run. Seems like a great guy too.
Bigger issue is the defense, bullpen, fundamentals, and offense. The strikeouts and inability to make contact is a huge problem. Anthony and Campbell should hopefully help with that, but you never know ….. Rafaela was a great hitter in the minors and look what happened to him.
I really think we need to look at the big picture, the coaching staff (Fatso) and manager (Cora) and organizational philosophy of swinging hard for the fences with an upward trajectory on every pitch. It’s dumb dumb DUMB!
Last night the wind was blowing in hard, yet the players kept swinging for the fences instead of choking up and going for line drives.
Also for the love of God, take a pitch now and then guys!!! Do you know Rafaela hasn’t walked since August 9th? How is that even possible? 32 games and 115 PA’s without a walk is insane!
The problem with the Boston Red Sox definitely starts at the top.
whyhayzee
“Bigger issue is the defense, bullpen, fundamentals, and offense.”
Crap, that’s pretty much everything.
whyhayzee
Did you at least like my “address” joke?
Fever Pitch Guy
hayzee – Yes I gave you a thumb!
Fever Pitch Guy
hayzee – True, but maybe some of the top prospects can improve the defense & fundamentals & offense.
Speaking of fundamentals, Jim Rice absolutely slammed Rafaela for showboating on his homerun that hit halfway up off the wall. Should have been a triple which would have helped the Sox win.
Now that Breslow has had a year to evaluate, it will be interesting to see if he pulls the trigger on a blockbuster trade involving Duran, Abreu, Grissom or Casas.
johnsilver
Fever- Was a time, like for decades Boston teams were known for patience at the plate and it’s all out the window. Can look back at every single one of the great players from the team and they were known as selective. Not 1 player on this team can really say that for and include devers/Duran in that who both have around 50bb and are right there leading the team in bb’s.
Will say again, this team has had no excuse for not adding meidroth to the 40 man and 26 man months ago. Not only can he play 3b/ss/2b. he’s hitting .300 and has over 100bb’s at the AAA level, so called “quiet” hits or not, he knows how to get on base which is more than most of the players on this team have been doing since the AS break.
Foot dragging, or making the wrong moves period is what this team has been doing all season long moves wise and look at what they have accomplished. F- in my book.
johnsilver
Fever- I don’t see Grissom having squat for trade value, even if he manages to put together 10 days worth of good games and the FO will be afraid of being made to look even worse after giving away Sale for him. Casas am afraid holds more value in the eyes of Sox fans than league wide, my 2c.
Duran, before freaking out the uptight bostonians few weeks back would have never figured to have been available, now he may be in a way without the FO feeling the wrath. It’s wrong and for all the wrong reasons, but he’s got to have massive trade value and if he should get moved? it had better bring back a front line starter with multiple years of control, or the NE, uptight populace will be 100% at fault.
CravenMoorehead
As tough as the last few seasons were I think Boston is on the right path. If Story can stay healthy, they get decent production at 2B and they find another good starting pitcher/reliever they’ll be battling NY and BAL for 1st place.
inutero
this is totally grasping at straws, story is well past his prime and will give you Paul dejon like production. total albatross of a contract they could’ve paid mookie a little more for. not to mention the diva yoshida and the overrated casas. the Sox need to go into total rebuild mode, which they should’ve done two years ago around Duran Rafaela and devers
cooperhill
350 million for a guy who should be a dh? Hit the treadmill, dude!
Fever Pitch Guy
coop – Actually it’s just $292M but yeah he needs to move to first base, will probably happen within 2 years.
Rishi
It’s not all a matter of weight. We have seen some pretty solid 3B who were heftier than him. Perhaps he just needs to work on his defense.
Fever Pitch Guy
Rishi – Agreed, but it’s been many years of working on his defense and time is running out.
I see Devers following in the same footsteps of guys like Miggy Cabrera and Vlad Jr, eventually moving from 3B to 1B.
Casas is not guaranteed to be a 1B fixture for years, his defense is awful and he’s got too many other issues that can affect his hitting.
Rishi
Yea 1B would make sense. I don’t follow BOS very closely so i lack insight. Certainly not looking like a smart contract but at least they have a reliable hitter for now. Perhaps that’s why the good SS have been getting so much money. You know they won’t end up being a complete defensive liability.
Bruin1012
FPG I disagree Casas is not an awful defensive first baseman, in fact he’s excellent at digging errant throws which I think is the most important job of first baseman. He does make some inexplicable errors at first occasionally and he will never look like Walker at first but he does save a lot of throwing errors and I think he’s at least average at first. I’m not convinced Raffy would translate to first either his best position is DH for a couple of reasons 1) He’s not a good defender at third and 2) Healthy Devers bat is two important for the Red Sox.
It’s not all doom and gloom though, there is legit talent coming. I’m guessing we see Anthony take over in right out of spring training he’s a future superstar and while it might take a month or two to adjust he will and he’s going to be special. I think it’s very likely we will see Campbell within a month or so of the season. He will probably slide into whatever position has an injury and if not he will play nearly everyday as a super utility guy. Teel should be ready soon as well maybe even around the same time as Campbell he’s taken great strides in his defense and he’s a line drive machine.
I expect Mayer to arrive next year as well. As long as he can stay healthy he is the shortstop of the future for Boston despite what some say on this site. I don’t think Story remains either healthy enough or offensively productive enough to keep Mayer down at AAA all next season.
I’m also going to predict that next season is the season is the season when the prospect experts start to realize low and behold the Red Sox do have pitching coming and I just got a feeling Sandlin is the big breakout guy next year.
acell10
figure out if he needs surgery and get him ready for next year.
LordD99
Shoulder issue in year one of 10-year, $300MM deal. What could go wrong?
Fever Pitch Guy
Lord – True, but at least he has youth on his side and hopefully he will move to 1B within a couple years.
Lots of star players have had shoulder surgery such as Tatis Jr and your man Judge, so I’m not too concerned about Devers recovering.
CravenMoorehead
I’ll tell you what, Devers’ deal certainly looks much better at this point than the contract SD gave Xander Bogaerts.
Fever Pitch Guy
Craven – I totally agree!
I love Xander, but that was a God-awful overpay by the Padres.
CravenMoorehead
BIG TIME overpay. It’s going to be interesting to see how Boston goes into this winter and who they target in free agency.
Fever Pitch Guy
Craven – Do you mean which free agents they will try hard to sign, or just who they will “show interest in”?
I don’t foresee any big name free agents signing with the Red Sox this winter. Crawford/Houck/Bello/Gio are all locks assuming Gio is healthy, and they will likely go with Fitts/Winck/Criswell as the 5th starter.
They’ve said they won’t try to contend until 2026 at the earliest, so signing a high ticket free agent now doesn’t seem like something they’d do.
CravenMoorehead
We shall see. The AL East landscape is definitely different these days with Baltimore on the rise and Boston still trying to put together pieces to be competitive in the future.
Cleon Jones
That’s a lot of money remaining for a Big Question Mark or two on his shoulders. Not a great start to this contract.
Fever Pitch Guy
Cleon – Agreed! Perhaps the injury was from carrying the entire team offense on his shoulders, which he did for most of the season until the pain became too much to handle.
I said all along Devers and Duran drove the offense for most of the season. Now with Devers in pain and Duran tiring out, we are seeing how much of an impact those two guys had on the rest of the team.
acell10
fans are so fickle. Even with shoulder issues he still made an all star team and had a strong offensive year.
Carl Winslow
Well let’s be honest here…the worst fans in baseball are all in the AL East (aside from all these brand new LA Dodgers bandwagon fans who glaze Ohtani AKA the rising sun gambler).
– Carl Winslow
JoeBrady
3.7 bWAR this year. I’m not overly concerned.
MPrck
Rough road fro the Tigers, being two games down to the Twins now. The Twins should sweep Boston, and Baltimore looked pretty strong, with perhaps the Tigers maybe feeling the nerves.
This playoff race is a great test for Detroit, and where they are at, and what to improve upon. 2 games back of the Twins to start Saturday.
Fever Pitch Guy
MP – I admire what the Tigers have been doing, but it’s definitely helped they’ve been playing a whole lot of bad or badly slumping teams.
I’m rooting for them though, and those last three games against the ChiSox should result in a strong finish to the regular season.
I wouldn’t count on a Twins sweep this weekend though, their SP tomorrow has been really really bad.
gregoire
This organization no longer attracts premium free agent talent. DFA dumpster here we come.
Ltsz2904
It starts with ownership. 300 million was spent on the PGA. You get what you pay for-mediocrity. The only player that hustles day in & day out is Duran.
Rsox
Might as well. Sox season officially ended last night so let’s get Devers ready for next year