Red Sox left-hander James Paxton suffered a Grade 1 hamstring strain during his Spring Training outing yesterday, manager Alex Cora told reporters, including Ian Browne of MLB.com. Since Paxton will be shut down temporarily, it doesn’t appear as though the southpaw will be ready for Opening Day, though Cora is hopeful a larger injury has been averted.
“If we need imaging, we’ll do it. Right now, we don’t feel that way,” Cora said. “He’s going to fall behind a little bit here. But worst case scenario, you know, it’s actually a best case scenario. It doesn’t look that bad.”
A Grade 1 is the least-serious type of strain, so if Paxton did miss only a minimal amount of Grapefruit League prep while recovering, he might be back in action after a 15-day injured list placement and be on track for a mid-April debut. Of course, any type of injury is particularly notable in Paxton’s case given the long list of issues that have sidetracked his career, though the large majority of those past injuries were arm-related.
Since the start of the 2020 season, Paxton has only thrown only 21 2/3 big league innings — none of those with the Red Sox, despite signing with Boston over a year ago. Tommy John surgery was responsible for much of that layoff, but Paxton was also waylaid by a flexor strain in 2020, and then a lat strain set back Paxton’s rehab last season and kept him from getting on the mound whatsoever in 2022.
Paxton is entering the second season of what has turned out to be a two-year, $10MM deal with the Red Sox, albeit with a complicated set of steps to reach that total. The deal paid Paxton $6MM in 2022, and he then exercised a $4MM player option for 2023 after the Sox declined a pair of club options that would have paid the southpaw $13MM in both the 2023 and 2024 seasons. Naturally, Paxton’s absence in 2022 made it an easy call for the Red Sox to decline those club options (the team had to decide on both options simultaneously), and likewise it wasn’t a surprise that Paxton opted to lock in that $4MM after a season of such uncertainty.
Paxton’s hamstring strain creates another injury concern for a Red Sox pitching staff that has already run into issues with Garrett Whitlock and Brayan Bello. Whitlock has been limited to bullpen sessions as he recovers from hip surgery, though Cora told reporters (including MLB.com’s Ian Browne) yesterday that if Whitlock is indeed not ready to break camp with the Sox, “he’s not going to lose too much time….it’s not because he’s hurt or whatever. It’s just the progression of where we’re at, especially moving around.” Bello was temporarily shut down due to some forearm soreness early in camp, but the young righty has resumed throwing off a mound.
Chris Sale, Nick Pivetta, Corey Kluber now look like the only pitchers penciled into the Opening Day roster, with Tanner Houck as the logical candidate to step into one of the spots left open if Paxton and Whitlock are absent. However, Boston has a busy April schedule with only two off-days in the month, so a fifth starter will be needed if Paxton or Whitlock don’t make a quick recovery. This could open the door for Josh Winckowski to make some more starts in a fill-in capacity, or the Sox could opt for bullpen games or an opener/bulk pitcher tandem.