Red Sox Rumors: Optioning Triston Casas, shorstop help delayed, Royals trade target

Red Sox Rumors: Adalberto Mondesi won’t be returning as soon as hoped

Losing Xander Bogaerts was always going to complicate things at shortstop for the Boston Red Sox this season. That was made even worse when Trevor Story underwent surgery that will keep him out for at least the first half of the season.

Eventually, top prospect Marcelo Mayer is going to be the future at the position, but he was just promoted to Double-A and isn’t quite ready for that moment just yet. So in the meantime with Bogaerts in San Diego and Story on the IL, the Red Sox have been doing their best to make it work. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked all that well, particularly defensively.

Kiké Hernandez has been the most-used shortstop this season for Boston, but he leads the team in errors with 11 on the year, the most by any shortstop in baseball. And the effects of that have been notable. But fans in the know were hoping that an underrated offseason addition, Adalberto Mondesi, might be returning from the IL soon to help the cause.

Those hopes have now been dashed.

Mondesi, recovering from a torn ACL suffered 13 months ago while with Kansas City prior to being traded to Boston in January, isn’t having a smooth recovery and return. Alex Cora told MassLive this week that the process was moving slowly with the shortstop having good days and bad days mixed together but that it still didn’t appear like the veteran was ready, at least mentally, to get back to a big league roster.

That’s a tough pill to swallow for the Red Sox as, though Mondesi is a pedestrian bat at best, he’s been an above average player defensively. That would work wonders for the Boston defense right now, but that unfortunately doesn’t seem to be in the cards, at least any time soon.