Trevor Story Giving Red Sox Return ‘Hope’ Early In Injury Recovery

There’s no exact timetable for a return for Boston Red Sox infielder Trevor Story after undergoing an internal bracing procedure on the UCL ligament in his right elbow this offseason.

While Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said the team can’t “bank on” the 30-year-old playing this season, Story was confident in mid-January that he would be back on the diamond for game action, most likely in the second half of the campaign.

If that even happens, it is still a long way off in the future, but Story is making progress with his rehab early in spring training. He fielded grounders for the first time since the surgery this week. Red Sox manager Alex Cora is encouraged by the progress, helping him believe he’ll get to pencil Story into the lineup at some point in 2023.

“It gives you hope,” Cora told MLB.com’s Ian Browne. “If he’s not thinking about (playing) this year, then why take ground balls so soon? He wants to be a baseball player, just like everybody else. He’s engaged and he’s excited. To take that step, it means a lot. That’s a good first step.”

Story, who batted .238 with 16 home runs and 66 RBIs in 94 games during an injury-riddled first season with the Red Sox, didn’t try to diminish the importance of that first step, either. Taking grounders allowed him to break out of the mundane nature of the rehabilitation process.

“It’s huge,” Story told Browne. “You get to that point where you feel like just a rehabber. To get out in the field and take ground balls and feel more like a baseball player is really good, something I’ve been looking forward to. It’s something small in the grand scheme of things, but in the progression it’s big.”

There will be more small steps for Story to take going forward, all in an effort to try to achieve a big result of playing this season.