Red Sox’ Darwinzon Hernandez heading to injured list with sprained SC joint

Ron Roenicke knew something was wrong with Darwinzon Hernandez during his last relief appearance on Saturday. It turned out the Red Sox’ hard-throwing lefty was hurt.

Hernandez is going to the injured list with a sprained SC joint in his left shoulder, the Red Sox manager said before Monday night’s game against the Braves.

“There’s some inflammation there,” Roenicke said. “They’ve checked him out and they were trying to decide on just to rest him for a few days or IL him, so the decision was to IL him and give himself a little more chance to rest before we get him going again.”

Hernandez made just 16 pitches in relief in Saturday’s win over the Nationals, far less than he had thrown in his first two appearances of the season. The average velocity on his four-seam fastball was just 92.6 mph, slower than his season average of 94.7 mph. Even though he struck out two to end the third inning, something wasn’t right with him and Roenicke chose to take him out of the game.

The manager, though, said after the game that there wasn’t an injury concern with Hernandez, who said he felt fine. Roenicke didn’t seem concerned about how this affecting Hernandez long term.

“It shouldn’t be,” Roenicke said. “We’re obviously taking care of him and making sure we do everything right with him. He’s felt this but he hasn’t really told anyone it’s an issue so when he’s pitching, he doesn’t feel it. He feels it maybe a little bit the next day but he hasn’t felt it while pitching. The other day, as you know, we didn’t have him go back out there and things just didn’t look right and this is what they have found.”

Hernandez missed the first 26 games of the season after testing positive for COVID-19 before summer camp in July. The lefty had started strong in his first three chances this season, striking out seven in 4⅔ scoreless innings after a breakout rookie season in 2019 in which he struck out 57 batters in 30⅓ innings.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3joXcJY