James Paxton leaves start with hamstring injury
Red Sox left-hander James Paxton left his first spring start with an apparent injury. The lefty was removed after 1 2/3 innings of work with what looked like a right leg injury.
Paxton confirmed to the Red Sox media during the game that he felt a tweak in his right hamstring on the second to last pitch he threw before coming out.
“Yeah, just a little kind of like hamstring grabbed at me a little bit. Just as I kind of started to find that firing pin, let the ball go a little bit harder. I wanted to step on it a little bit and hamstring just grabbed… we’ll see what we got, we don’t really know yet. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow and go from there,” said Paxton.
The 34-year-old was throwing the ball well today, he had one strikeout and didn’t surrender a hit. Paxton threw 19 pitches before exiting the game.
“I think there’s positive’s and negatives. I think going out there and filling out the zone like I did, felt good. Felt good with some breaking balls, fastball felt pretty good, I felt like it was coming out of the hand well,” added Paxton.
The trainers said they aren’t sure of the extent of his hamstring injury.
“They said it cramped up a little bit. Not sure if it’s a strain yet. See how it goes here. It might just be a really light strain, they said my strength was still pretty good,” added Paxton.
Paxton has been focusing on getting through the spring healthy and contributing for the major league club this season. This hamstring issue is another setback in the veteran’s journey back.
"This is not how I wanted this to go. I wanted to go through spring training clean, but I can't control that. I can only control going to work on this now and do whatever I can to get back out there,” said Paxton.
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