'It sucks because we felt at one point he was making strides'
Slowly but surely, the Boston Red Sox seem to be getting healthy. Very slowly.
While Chris Sale, Nathan Eovaldi and Garrett Whitlock have all made rehab starts in July, and either have been activated off the injured list or are expected to be activated off the injured list soon, Red Sox centerfielder Kiké Hernández had his rehab assignment shut down on Tuesday.
“He doesn’t feel great. We have to back off and now see if there’s something else going on that we haven’t seen in our testing, or if something else came up, so I think we’ll know more now during the week,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said, as reported by Jahmai Webster on NESN’s Red Sox coverage. “It sucks because we felt at one point he was making strides, and obviously that’s why we let him play, but now we just have to be very patient.”
Hernández was placed on the 15-day injured list on June 8 with a right hip flexor injury, and spent an entire month on the shelf before making a rehab appearance with Triple-A Worcester on July 8. In that appearance with the Woo Sox, Hernández went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts as Worcester’s designated hitter.
With the 30-year-old remaining down for the foreseeable future, Jarren Duran and Rob Refsnyder will continue to see extended playing time for the Red Sox out of the leadoff spot.