WEST SACRAMENTO – The Red Sox were able to offer more specifics on the injury to trade acquisition Curtis Mead, who was plunked on the left wrist in just his second at-bat with his new team on Monday night.
“The doctors read the scan; it’s a non-displaced fracture, so he’s going into a cast. No surgery and the way we talked was that he's going to be reimaged in four weeks,” said Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy.
At this point, the Red Sox aren’t ruling Mead out for the remainder of the season.
Though the club didn’t offer a timetable, a best-case scenario would probably have Mead returning sometime between mid- to late September. The final game of the regular season is on Sept. 27.
It largely depends on the amount of healing that is shown in the follow-up scan, which should happen around Aug. 26.
“I wouldn't say there's any reason to rule him out [for this season] based on those findings, but we'll know a lot more in four weeks once they re-image and see how it's healed,” Tracy said.
The Red Sox were thrilled to get Mead in a trade with the Nationals for lefty Connelly Early on July 25, and obviously endured disappointment when he was knocked out of the mix just two at-bats into his tenure with Boston.
In Mead, the Sox got the caliber of right-handed hitter that chief baseball officer Craig Breslow had been seeking for weeks.
With a few days to spare until Monday's Trade Deadline, Breslow is still searching for more bats.
And there’s at least some hope that Mead could participate late in the regular season or in the postseason.
That said, it would be unproductive for the Sox to expect him back in ‘26.
“I wouldn't use that terminology,” Tracy said. “I would just say that we hope he would [be back], but we're going to see what it looks like in four weeks. It'll be a lot easier to tell at that point.”
A former top prospect with the Rays who struggled to find his footing in his first three seasons in the Majors, Mead came to the Red Sox in the midst of a career year, in which he’s belted 17 homers with an .852 OPS in 87 games with the Nats. The plan was that he would bat second and play second base while helping Boston’s postseason push.
At least until that follow-up MRI in a month, all plans for Mead in the context of the ‘26 season are on hold.