James Paxton suffered a right calf strain in the first inning of his start today against the Astros, forcing the veteran left-hander from the mound. Paxton’s fifth pitch of the game got Yordan Alvarez to ground to first baseman Dominic Smith, but Paxton came up limping when leaving the mound to cover first base.
Speaking to MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo (links to X) and other media after the game, Paxton said he heard a popping sound in his leg. Paxton was using crutches to move around in the clubhouse, and he’ll get an MRI tomorrow to access the damage.
A trip to the 15-day injured list seems inevitable, and it is up in the air whether or not Paxton will even be able to pitch again in 2024. Even if the MRI reveals the relatively good news of “just” a lower-grade strain, such injuries can tend to linger. It is also possible the Red Sox could shut Paxton down for the season if the team falls out of the postseason race — today’s 10-2 loss dropped the Sox three games back of a wild card berth, and extended Boston’s losing streak to four games.
The calf strain is another disheartening turn in a career that has been marked by injuries, as Paxton was on pace to avoid the Major League injured list for the first time since 2013. He hasn’t dealt with calf issues in the past, though he missed time last year with a pair of right leg injuries, in the form of a hamstring strain and knee inflammation.
Paxton was with the Red Sox during that 2023 season, before signing a one-year, $7MM deal with the Dodgers last winter. Since Paxton stayed healthy and has made 21 starts (and thrown 100 1/3 innings) in total this season, he earned an extra $6MM in contract incentives, which the Dodgers already covered before he was dealt back to Boston in late July. The trade was seen as a bit of a surprise given how Los Angeles has been ravaged by rotation injuries this season, and Paxton had a respectable 4.43 ERA in his 89 1/3 innings as a Dodger. His Statcast numbers, however, were much less impressive, and today’s injury also underlines whatever concerns the Dodgers might’ve had about Paxton remaining healthy.
From Boston’s perspective, the Paxton trade brought a familiar face and some rotation depth back to Fenway Park, but it looks like the Red Sox might have to again scramble to add arms. Quinn Priester was acquired from the Pirates in another pre-deadline trade and could be called up from Triple-A, or Brad Keller could be stretched out to work in piggyback situation, or as a bulk pitcher behind an opener. Cooper Criswell will miss at least the rest of the next week due to a placement on the COVID-related injury list, while Nick Pivetta is expected to make his next turn in the rotation after his last start was skipped to provide extra rest.
They can call up Fitts in a few days. Only legit prospect starter in the entire organization (other than Sandlin), only Fitts threw around 80p Friday.
There is little to no help coming from within the system. Sure, there are some guys like Penrod and Gonzalez who may have a future as relievers, but guys in the system before the draft (no ucl rehabbers) It’s just those 2 and Sandlin only has 3 games above A ball.
What happens when ignore drafting pitching every year and focus on middle infielders.
Rich Hill coming soon!
That’s what I suggested on another feed when I first heard the news.
I guess it’s down to giving Winckowski 3-4 innings a start or (oof!) Brad Keller for 3-4. Their season is over. Actually, when they fell on their faces coming out of the All-Star break it was over.
I started feeling like it was over yesterday.
Rich Hill will probably get injured too. The guy was always an injury waiting to happen. If not, Cora will limit his innings like he did two years ago.
They have the same record as last year at this time, or maybe off a game. Deja vu. Wouldn’t be surprised to see 78 wins again for the third season in a row.
All in the suit
Let’s hope so. MLB is better with Rich Hill in it.
John – I think the possibility of Rich Hill Act 4 just increased substantially.
Priester could also be available, and is already on the 40 man roster.
In the long run, I think we are better off just letting him re-learn his craft.
tff – I still say using Winck as a starter is the best possible decision. I trust him a lot more than Hill, Priester, Keller, etc.
Snake bitten.
Paxton is injured or mediocre with the Sox. Goes elsewhere and flashes descent results. Comes back to Boston and is injured again.
I bet if the Sox had traded for Sale at the deadline he would have broken a toe in his second start.
Yep. Not a lot of good breaks for the Red Sox this year.
Fever- how was it a high risk? Paxton wasn’t getting them anywhere regardless.
Bc – More accurately, they took a high-risk roll of the dice a second time, and it came up snake eyes again.
Blame the Sox for all these high risk chances, that’s not something they deserve sympathy for.
He wasn’t exactly Cal Ripkin Jr. when he was with the Yankees.
Ripken, please
Oops. My bad.
The Big Balsa hurt again. Who would have ever imagined that would happened so quickly. /s
That’s funny Big Balsa.. Made my day. I figured he’d get injured again.
It must be awful to be a good pitcher stuck in the minors behind a guy like this. I can’t understand why Paxton keeps getting chances.
Yaz’sOldBattingGloves.
Because he’s better than the guys in the minors
Paxton gave the Red Sox more innings than Giolito in 2024.
he’s made of glass…
I’m working at a minor league game and team orthopedic surgeon is in press box. He saw clip and immediately said he tore his Achilles.
This sounds very much like an Achilles injury. Let’s see if it’s the case
Move Dominic Smith to a 2 way player he had the 2nd best pitching line on the day. He could move back and forth between the mound and 1B intra-game as the match up required. It can’t be worse than most of the bullpens performance.
He’s Little Shohei!
Yes why not!
James Paxton on the Red Sox IL? I am completely shocked. Who could have saw this coming?
Not Breslow
If Dom fields that ball and easily runs to first, Paxton goes six solid and the bullpen gets crushed.
Just how do these players continually sneak baby cows on to the field anyway? Why would they want to? The calves always get injured.
Oh ,that’s different. NEVER MIND!!
How long before Breslin announces signing Rich Hill?
I’d say before noon tomorrow.
Jimmy Breslin?
since sending sale out as closer in ’18 they’ve dealt with pitcher injuries like the plague. soak some schilling blood on some stockings and hang it over the gates and let the curse of betts passover.
the big Maple felled yet again. feel bad for him, but not for the Red Sox. The Dodgers have major rotation issues yet let him go. There had to be a reason why.
I suggested the Sox should have been nothing but sellers at the trade deadline. trades are always a toss up as to how things shake out. Schwarber in 2021 panned out. This trade deadline has not.
Paxton is hurt. Sims and Garcia have been lit up like the proverbial pinball machine. O’Neill, who may have had some trade value, is now hurt.
the late season duldrums are back in Boston. the pitching is gassed with little relief (both in actual pitching and from their brutal schedule the rest of the way- Rangers, Orioles, Astros again, and Diamondbacks are the next 4 series) in sight.
at this point, save Casas and Story until next season, bring up some young arms, and play this out. they overachieved this season as it is, and are falling back to earth.
Story has been hurt what 3 years in a row now? How much do you think he is going to give you. The production at first base is horrid. Hopefully Casas will help because Dalbac is terrible and is a minor leaguer at best.
Al – 4 years in a row.
Well he helped with the push for …. One game…
Not even a full inning
You get what you pay for
Shame on Breslow for not acquiring another starter he did just enough to get some media love for not standing pat. He knew his other starters never threw so much before but didn’t act.
Paxton, healthy or not, wasn’t getting them anywhere
fba – You are 100% correct, and I (along with others) called it prior to the deadline.
The Red Sox said they would acquire three things: Starting pitcher, relief pitcher, righthand bat.
What they got was Paxton who had been designated for assignment, Ramirez who was waived by the Dodgers, Jansen who was a backup catcher in a massive hitting slump, and Garcia/Sims who were mediocre at best. All acquisitions involved very little in terms of money and prospects.
So in other words, Sox ownership deceived us yet again. They led us to believe they were going for a postseason berth this year, when in fact their acquisitions did very little to make the team better. And the results prove that as they are just 5-6 since the deadline.
Sounds similar to Senga’s injury. Might be worse,though
Paxton hurt again, what a shock!!!! Breslow picked up Paxton because he was cheap. He was designated for assignment. The Dodgers pick up most of the salary. Houck, Crawford, Winckowski are all over their innings pitched from last season. Pivetta has a sore arm and Bello is not the same pitcher he was last year. Breslow picked up two relievers but needed starting pitchers and did not pick one up. The starters are absolutely killing the bullpen by not going deep into games. I do not see this getting better either. The second half of the season has been brutal. This sweep by Houston probably killed the season and any playoff wild card hopes. It will be the turning point of 2024 in any playoff hopes.
I’m probably older than you are, grew up in the 70s.
This was the language of abuse then and it is the language of abuse today. It has nothing to do with the other cultural issues you describe. It comes down to whether one worships abusive behavior as people did back then or whether one rejects it.
I am glad that neither you nor one of those you care about ever suffered this kind of abuse. If you had, you would feel very differently. Maybe when you are older then you will gain broader appreciation for things outside your personal experience?
Tff
Naw
FPG almost certainly abides by “sticks and stones”
Until you call THEM a name, that is. Then they are the first one to lose their [feces].
They already said that hearing the F–K word harms children
“I’m a big believer in protecting kids, vulgarities of any kind should NEVER become acceptable. Somewhere along the line at a young age Duran was taught those vulgarities are acceptable, that’s why I will always protect kids.”
But the f—-t word well that’s just a made up word that
“originally described a bundle of sticks or a cigarette”
The word itself in English goes back 700 years, and in 18th and 19th century writing was not necessarily used as an insult, though during that period it was also used in a pejorative sense for “useless” children, women, and men. It didn’t gain the homosexual connotations until around WWI.
So yes, it is a word, but it has been a pejorative term a LOT longer than it has held connotations of sexuality. And if you trace the historical development of the term, its initial application in that direction was almost certainly lumping homosexual men with other “useless” people.
In short, it is a word that is used in abusing people. Has been for centuries.
FPG
So pathetic that you’re so scared of the real world that you create this alternate reality to live in.
Again, F off
“I could provide plenty of studies”
Just one
Absolutely, Duran should have let it slide. He lowers himself by responding to the heckler.
No excuse for the abuse that Jackie Robinson took, though. Or for the hate language that Duran used. Or for the attacks on Jews in certain protests. As a nation we need to do better.
Can’t really claim surprise at a James Paxton injury. Unfortunate, sure…surprising? Not in the slightest. Pretty sure the postseason push is officially done anyhow, Time to start letting some young guys get some reps to show what they’ve got; and get a head start scouting the free agent and/or trade market for pitching in the off-season. They have all the bats in the world, with more on the way. But not a single projectable top of the rotation arm in the system. Hell, quite likely not even a quality mid-rotation arm. Might as well also go ahead and shut down Hendricks, Story and Casas as well. No sense having any of them pushing to get back, re-injuring themselves; and jeopardizing readiness for ST ’25
It was done before Paxton. Same record as last year going into August 11/12
Unfortunately their “efforts” in free agency are doomed to repeat the past couple seasons as long as they refuse to offer anyone a contract longer than the standard issue 2 year deal with option for a 3rd. As long as that’s their line in the sand, they’re doomed to the steady stream of reclamation projects and washed up veterans they’ve been signing since 2019
Story and Yoshida disagree. You could argue Devers as well, though that situation was a bit different. Whether you think they’re good or not, they are free agent contracts past 2 years. Already a hole in that philosophy.
Mango – Absolutely correct, the way they went cheap with their offers to everyone from Teoscar to Shota to Lugo is an embarrassment. And whenever they think they have a “bargain” with high risk players like Story, Mondesi (via trade but still expensive), Paxton, Giolito etc it always cones back to bite them in the butt.
The part that bothers me isn’t so much that Paxton got injured, but the fact that we pamper pitchers and limit their innings, which hurts us in the short run, only to prevent them from getting hurt in the long run, yet they get injured anyway. Sox need to change their approach because none of these young pitchers have the longevity to pitch a full season.
The fact is getting another starter doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There were way more buyers than sellers making it a very costly market to business in. Most of those starters acquisition’s were viewed as big overpays. The one exception was Flaherty and it sounds like the Yankees backed out of the deal due to medicals. The reality the Red Sox would have needed to of added Skubal and Snell to their rotation to really make a difference and those guys just weren’t available.
It’s funny people would complain no matter what happens if they would have traded the farm for Skubal and Snell then there would have been complaints they traded the future. Breslow did what he had to do he didn’t mortgage the future and he gave the team a chance to squeak into the post but this was realistically not the Red Sox to go all in.
The Red Sox have a nice young team forming and the big three are getting closer. They are now just one step away and are viable for even next season. There’s also more talent coming. This off-season the Red Sox are going to need to address the starting pitching due to the impact pitching unlikely until at least late 2025 more likely 2026. Portlands rotation should be fun to watch next season.
You may be right about ownership and the big club but your opinion of the farm means very little to me because you have no clue. You don’t watch minor league games you don’t hear about how the organization is having a particular player work on something they want you simply scout the stat line. Guys that scout prospects for a living caution about scouting a stat line in the minors. You simply see a stat line and, especially if they are drafted in the Bloom era, you declare they suck. You bring nothing constructive to conversations about the farm except your biases.
I’m not a huge fan of Cora and I think ownership has been derelict in there stuardship of this franchise. I think this off-season is going to be a very key off-season for the Boston Red Sox ownership. The team has a nice position base going with potentially more help coming from the farm in top 30 prospects Mayer, Teel, and Anthony. Ownership needs to green light acquiring starting pitching you can never have enough of that just ask the Dodgers. I don’t have any faith that ownership will do anything this off-season to meaningfully change the starting pitching on the big club. Cora has shown time and time again he will blow out and overuse his bullpen and I don’t expect that to change unless the powers bring in more starting pitching that can be counted on to go deeper into games such as Burnes.
I do expect Breslow will address the pitching if ownership allows him to spend. I expect that pitching is going to continue be a priority in the draft and international signings under Breslow. I also expect the newly formed Willard, Boddy, etc will continue to help pitching develop more efficiently throughout the system from top to bottom. These are my expectations moving forward.
When it comes to the farm system for better or worse it’s just a different animal then it was even 5 years ago. Analytics are king now if they see a characteristic that analytics thinks isn’t going to work moving further up the ladder then they are going to try and fix it and that might come at the expense of the underlying statistics. I’ll use an example of Roman Anthony. Anthony could hit for a lot higher average if the let him just continue to hit ground balls but what analytics say is as he moves higher and higher the defense gets better and better and those ground balls that are hits become outs. In Anthony’s case when he hits with more loft in his swing he hits home runs so they are trying to get him to swing with a little more uppercut and take advantage of his tremendous power potential. It may come at the expense of average for a little while and you can argue to just let the kid go and he will figure it out old style but that’s not what happens now. This is why we don’t scout the stat line. There are many other examples especially pitchers but you get the idea.
You must be getting old because I never projected superstardom for Wong I projected him exactly what he is a competent big league catcher. I talked about how he chased too many sliders and he needed to get that under control. I never said Verdugo was going to be star I said he was competent big leaguer. I never said he was going to be Mookie Betts. I also never talked about the farm as much as I do now because until now it has been subpar. The only prospect I was really off on was Jeter Downs I admit I thought he’d be better. I can admit it. You probably forget but you were talking about how bad Devers was and you wanted Chavis to get his shot when I told you he couldn’t hit the high fastball to save his life. Where is Chavis he’s out of the bigs why HE CANT HIT A HIGH FASTBALL TO SAVE HIS LIFE. It goes on and on you said Casas sucks then when he made the adjustments that he always made when he went to a new level you said well he figured it out. I told you he would because he always started slow upon promotion you thought it was some kind of magic but I knew the truth. I’m telling you the truth now this is the best the farm has looked in over a decade easily. I expect all three of Mayer, Anthony, and Teel to be quality big leaguers if I had to guess Anthony will be the best of the bunch because he’s going to be 30 homer hitter in the bigs he has special power and swing reminds me of JD Drew with more natural power. This farm is stacked. Are some of the guys going to flop sure they are but the amount of talent in this farm is real and it’s going to fun to point them out but you’ll just say well I like them know like Casas because he’s made adjustments. I’ll be saying yea I knew that guy was going to be really good big leaguer when he was hitting in Salem. Yes when you prognosticate all the way back in A ball you aren’t going to hit them all some will fail but the eye is pretty good and fools me only some times and the eye tells me we are going to look back and say wow there was a ton of talent in the minors in 2024.
Snell isn’t worth it. Rarely ever has been. Never understood that guy. He shows flashes of brilliance mired in mediocrity and barely pitches enough innings to make it worthwhile. Cora would have him out in 3 innings with his pitch count.
Chaim, the fact is Snell would be the ace of this pitching staff in Boston. He’s pitched really well in the last month he’s striking out 11.5 per and walking 2.5 per his era is 1.15 since coming back. He’s is and has been a really good pitcher and would easily be the best starter on Boston. What I do agree with you is he can be inconsistent and he walks guys and throws a lot of pitches so in this day and age means he doesn’t go as far as you want into games. Still he’s a big game pitcher with big game stuff and he would front this rotation and many rotations in baseball.
Snell isn’t worth it. Just made a comment and thought I replied but it’s not showing up
Have to disagree with you on Snell. Sure he threw a no hitter, but he’s been injured most of the season.
I think Snell and Monty didn’t do themselves any favors holding out as long as they did. They both didn’t get spring training both have been hurt and while Snell, with undoubtably the superior stuff, has turned the corner and is pitching like a tor arm Monty who rely’s on location and is mostly a finesse pitcher is having a completely lost year. I hope this shows other guys the perils of holding out they need spring training.
“They call me Mr. Glass…”
They call me Dr. Worm.