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Red Sox newcomer on elbow injury: ‘I couldn’t bend or flex my arm when I woke up’
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- Red Sox newcomer on elbow injury: ‘I couldn’t bend or flex my arm when I woke up’
BOSTON — Red Sox right-hander Johan Oviedo is hoping for the best — yet somewhat wary of the worst — after feeling his elbow lock up in the days after his season debut earlier this week.
Oviedo, who was acquired in a six-player December trade that sent talented outfield prospect Jhostynxon Garcia to Pittsburgh , felt fine in the wake of his rough season debut in relief Monday in Houston . He experienced no discomfort while playing catch Tuesday at Daikin Park. On Wednesday, in a Houston hotel, things changed.
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“When I woke up in the morning, I couldn’t bend or flex my arm when I was getting out of bed,” Oviedo said.
That restrictive feeling, which has lingered into the weekend, led the Red Sox to shut down Oviedo, place him on the 15-day injured list with a strain in his pitching elbow and send him for imaging that is being reviewed by Dr. Keith Meister , an orthopedic surgeon who performed Tommy John surgery on Oviedo just 28 months ago. The Red Sox and Oviedo believe he will pay Meister a visit in Texas in the coming days, depending on what the MRI results say.
“Just waiting on a positive answer from the doctor,” Oviedo said. “Still don’t know the results. It’s all speculation. It’s just being positive about the results.
“The last few years have been a roller-coaster so right now, all I’m trying to tell myself and family members is to be positive.”
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A hopeful fact, Oviedo said, is that the discomfort that he’s feeling is different from what he felt in 2023 before having Tommy John surgery that fall. Still, the lack of range-of-motion in his elbow is quite concerning.
“It feels more restricted,” Oviedo said. “T.J. was more that you work through the pain, through the season. You try to do everything you can. Right now, it’s more about I can’t literally flex or bend it all the way down. It’s better. It’s just when I try to go up, it’s a little more restricted to it. Right now, it feels like the range of motion is not there. You’ve got a little bit of pain but it just feels locked.”
The Red Sox acquired Oviedo intending to put him in the Opening Day rotation but after signing Ranger Suárez to a five-year, $130 million contract, brought Oviedo to camp as the leading candidate to land the No. 5 spot in the rotation in a competition that also featured Connelly Early and Payton Tolle . Oviedo pitched well in the middle of spring training but struggled late and also watched his velocity drop by the end of March . While he felt no pain at that point, the fact his fastball was sitting in the 92-93 mph range made Red Sox decision-makers scratch their heads. Ahead of Opening Day, Boston chose Early for the final rotation spot with Oviedo in a piggyback role behind Suárez, who was not fully built up because of limitations caused by the World Baseball Classic.
On Monday in Houston, Oviedo labored, allowing four earned runs on six hits in 3 ⅔ innings in relief. In that outing, he averaged 93 mph, 2.5 mph slower than his 95.5 mph fastball velocity average last season with the Pirates . The Red Sox thought the issue was mechanical before the arm issues surfaced 48 hours later.
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“It came out of nowhere, but if you start looking at the trends of velocity, he had that good (spring outing) in Dunedin, where he was 98-99 mph (on March 2). Then after that, it started trending down,” said manager Alex Cora. “Maybe that’s the reason.”
On Friday, Oviedo acknowledged that the drop in velocity was surprising but noted that it was unrelated to any physical issues before this week.
“Any signs before that weren’t anything like it,” he said. “The only things that we were watching was the velo going down, but other than that, there were zero signs of soreness or pain. That’s why we kept competing and working.”
For a pitcher who seemed to have a big opportunity in a new location after failing to establish himself in Pittsburgh, Oviedo knows the next few days are important as he learns more about what’s going on with his arm.
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“I had the T.J. in ‘24, so hopefully, this is not the case,” he said. “We had a great offseason and last year was perfect after I came back, physically. This took me for surprise because I had a really good offseason.”
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