Manager Terry Francona did not express much confidence in Ellsbury being able to recover in time for the second game of the series in Houston on Saturday night.
“He’s really sick. … We’ll see how he does [Saturday]. I don’t know, he didn’t look too good,” Francona said late Friday night.
Francona added that Ellsbury received IVs to offset a massive loss of fluids.
Ellsbury was in the lineup Friday afternoon, but scratched a little over two hours before first pitch. Marco Scutaro took his spot in the leadoff role, slugging a home run to begin the game, and Josh Reddick moved to center field.
Ellsbury is one of several players to fall victim to an illness in the past month or so. Josh Beckett went 13 days between starts because of the flu. Scutaro, Kevin Youkilis, Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Jed Lowrie were removed from the lineup or even during games because of the bug.
