Rehabbing Red Sox Newcomer Shut Down From Baseball Activities

The Boston Red Sox knew it would be a long journey back to baseball for Adalberto Mondesi after he tore his ACL last April.

And that trek is only getting longer for the 27-year-old infielder, who the Red Sox acquired from the Kansas City Royals in late January.

Prior to Tuesday night’s interleague contest with the Colorado Rockies at Fenway Park, Red Sox manager Alex Cora told reporters that Mondesi stopped his rehab work and had been shut down from all baseball activities, per The Boston Globe’s Julian McWilliams.

Despite making strides in his recovery during spring training, Mondesi wasn’t progressing well in his recovery as of late.

“(He’s) just down there, taking grounders, still grinding through it,” Cora told reporters at the beginning of this month, per MassLive.com. “He’s having good days and bad days. I don’t want to think for him, but it’s probably, ‘I don’t feel comfortable doing this,’ and then you have to slow down.”

The Red Sox hoped Mondesi could provide elite athleticism and speed to the middle infield as the Red Sox are thin at that positional group due to an injury to Trevor Story, who on Monday laid out a timeline for his return. Mondesi stole a league-leading 24 bases in the 2020 pandemic-shortened season and swiped a career-high 43 bags with the Royals in 2019 while hitting .263 with nine home runs and 62 RBIs.

Boston looked to tap into some of that talent when they traded lefty reliever Josh Taylor for Mondesi, fully understanding that Mondesi wouldn’t be ready for the start of the season.

But now they are left with not knowing exactly when — or if — Mondesi will play this season.