Red Sox left fielder Franchy Cordero sprained his right ankle in the fifth inning of Monday’s 4-3 loss to the Rays at Tropicana Field.
With one out and one runner on, Cordero attempted to track down a 358-foot fly ball off the bat of Randy Arozarena. He wound up running into the wall, however, as his right cleat got caught in the padding of the left field fence. That caused him to land awkwardly and hit the ground in pain.
After remaining on the warning track for a brief period, Cordero was visited by Red Sox manager Alex Cora and associate head athletic trainer Brandon Henry. Unable to put any weight on that right leg, Cordero was carted off the field and replaced in left by Rob Refsnyder.
While Cordero was initially diagnosed with a right ankle sprain, Cora provided an update after the game and revealed that the 28-year-old would be undergoing an MRI on Tuesday to ensure that there is no ligament damage.
“Franchy, he’s OK,” Cora said. “He’s going to get an MRI tomorrow to see if there’s ligament damage. We doubt it. But of course, we have to wait and see. He’s sore, of course, but we’ll wait and see for tomorrow.”
Both Cora and Cordero feared for the worst when contact was made with the wall. But Cordero seemed to be in better spirits despite being on crutches when explaining what went wrong on the play that ultimately resulted in an RBI double for Arozarena.
“I tried to field the ball and in this ballpark with the artificial grass you don’t feel the warning track, so you don’t know how close you are to the wall,” Cordero said through interpreter Carlos Villoria Benítez. “But so far the scans of everything have been negative. It’s just a sprained ankle.
“In the beginning, it felt really bad, but as I was coming to the clubhouse it was feeling better,” he added. “At first, I felt it was something worse than it was.”
As of now, it is not yet clear how much time Cordero — who went 0-for-2 with a pair of strikeouts on Monday — will miss because of this ankle sprain. Tuesday’s MRI will likely provide the Red Sox with more information as well as a possible timetable.
(Picture of Franchy Cordero: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
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