FORT MYERS, Fla. -- The Red Sox will be without one of their best off-the-bench bats against lefties for the foreseeable future.
After meeting on Tuesday with Dr. Jeffrey Dugas in Alabama, the club announced Thursday night that infielder/outfielder Romy Gonzalez underwent a successful left shoulder arthroscopic debridement on Thursday at Andrews Sports Medicine & Orthopaedic Center in Birmingham.
Gonzalez hit .305 and posted an .826 OPS across 341 plate appearances for the Sox last year with a 57.3 hard-hit percentage, which ranked in the 99th percentile in MLB.
Most impressive was his ability to hit left-handed pitching. Gonzalez slashed .331/.378/.600 against southpaws last year.
While the news is disheartening, manager Alex Cora seemed to have a positive outlook on Friday morning.
“It’s the best-case scenario,” Cora said of how Gonzalez’s surgery went. “Hopefully the rehab goes well and he’ll be with us sooner rather than later.”
As for the timetable for his return, Cora was unable to offer any insight Friday morning.
The procedure is considered more of a cleanup than a major reworking of the rotator cuff or labrum.
So, how do you replace the 29-year-old who hit lefties better than any other Red Sox player last year?
“We got players,” Cora said. “We’re OK with that and understanding he’ll be back. We’re going to be OK.”
Players the Red Sox have indeed. With a log-jammed outfield and infield reserves of Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Andruw Monasterio (if Marcelo Mayer starts the year at second), there are options for the club.
Monasterio hit better against lefties than he did right-handers last year, batting .273 in 44 at-bats for the Brewers. Kiner-Falefa struggled against left-handed pitching in 2025, hitting .227 with a .250 OBP versus southpaws in 124 plate appearances. He hit .276 against right-handers.
One possible player who could find success against lefties is Nate Eaton. The 29-year-old is coming off of a World Baseball Classic where he was a standout player for Great Britain and homered off the first pitch he saw against reigning two-time AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal in a game against the United States.
Cora said that while Eaton saw very brief stints in the infield last year (12 games at third base), he sees him primarily as an outfielder. Things could change in a Boston outfield that has more qualified bodies than positions available.
“He played a little bit [of infield] last year,” Cora said. “I see him more as an outfielder. I think that’s where he impacts the team better. Obviously he can hit lefties. He can run. I’ll talk to [Craig Breslow] if we want to take a look at him in the infield. He hasn’t worked out there when he was here and obviously during the [World Baseball Classic]. We’ll talk about it and see how we see him. But obviously he’s in the mix. He’s in the conversation.”
Eaton hit .279 in 43 at-bats against lefties in 2025 with two extra-base hits. His bat excelled after the All-Star break, slashing .316/.371/.404 against righties and lefties.
While Eaton could provide some reprieve from the loss of Gonzalez, his potential to make the roster is in question.
“There’s not too many spots here, position-player wise,” Cora said. “Not too many decisions. There’s one — a big one if you do that math. Probably one spot, right? Or two? Two spots. We’ll decide. You know, without [Rob Refsnyder], without Romy, and the lefties that we have in the mix when they have to manage the game. Not only early on, because I think people get the wrong impression, ‘Oh, [Wilyer Abreu] is going to play against lefties,’ whatever. Yeah, that’s the goal, but we have to manage the game.”
Cora drew comparisons to a move made in Game 1 of the 2018 World Series, when he pinch-hit Eduardo Núñez for Rafael Devers against lefty Alex Wood. Núñez hit a three-run homer in what was just a one-run game in the bottom of the seventh, with the Sox going on to win the night and the Series.
“Devers started against [Clayton] Kershaw in Game 1 of the World Series and they brought a lefty for Raffy later on, and we [pinch-hit],” Cora said. “We managed the game to win the game, and Eduardo hit the homer. Probably them thinking that, ‘Oh, he started against a lefty, they’re not pinch-hitting for him against the other lefty.’ That’s something that we have to take into consideration.”