{"id":87782,"date":"2024-10-16T14:16:50","date_gmt":"2024-10-16T18:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=87782"},"modified":"2024-10-16T14:16:50","modified_gmt":"2024-10-16T18:16:50","slug":"masataka-yoshida-shoulder-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/10\/16\/masataka-yoshida-shoulder-surgery\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox Slugger Faces Lengthy Recovery After Offseason Surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On the final day of the regular season, Boston Red Sox outfielder\/designated hitter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/y\/yoshima02.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-10-16_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Masataka Yoshida<\/a> revealed that he had been playing through discomfort in his right shoulder.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I had swing and misses I felt it a little bit, but I felt like I could keep swinging and playing so that&#8217;s why I kept playing,&#8221; Yoshida said via translator Yutaro Yamaguchi.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/IanMBrowne\/status\/1846569297075712489\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ian Browne of MLB.com<\/a>, Yoshida underwent an MRI on October 1 and had labral repair surgery on his shoulder two days later. The club did not provide an expected recovery timeline but targeted an Opening Day return. Yoshida, 31, signed a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2022\/12\/07\/masataka-yoshida-red-sox\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">five-year, $90 million contract<\/a> before the 2023 season. He spent nearly six weeks on the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/07\/12\/red-sox-masataka-yoshida\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">injured list<\/a> this season with a left thumb strain and hit .280\/.340\/.415 with 10 home runs and 56 RBI in 108 games.<\/p>\n<h2>Masataka Yoshida Undergoes Surgery on Right Shoulder<\/h2>\n<p>The Red Sox described Yoshida&#8217;s labral repair surgery as &#8220;successful,&#8221; with the typical recovery period for position players ranging from four to six months. For context, Cincinnati Reds infielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mclaima01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-10-16_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matt McLain<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/03\/27\/reds-infielder-undergoes-surgery-with-no-timetable-of-his-return\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">underwent similar surgery<\/a> in March, initially targeting an August return before experiencing a setback. San Diego Padres shortstop <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kimha01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-10-16_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ha-Seong Kim<\/a>, who <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/08\/21\/padres-infield-scenario\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">recently had the same procedure<\/a>, aims to return between late April and early May. Notably, Yoshida&#8217;s injury is in his throwing shoulder, but his recovery timeline could be shorter as a left-handed batter with significant designated hitter duties. If his progress mirrors McLain&#8217;s original projection, Yoshida may be ready for spring training games in March.<\/p>\n<p>If that&#8217;s the case, then it might benefit Yoshida who has performed better against right-handers than left-handers since coming over from Japan, batting .300 with an .816 OPS against righties and .239 with a .669 OPS against southpaws. In two seasons in Boston, Yoshida is batting .285 with 261 hits, 116 runs, 25 home runs and 128 RBI in 248 games.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo: \u00a9 Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the final day of the regular season, Boston Red Sox outfielder\/designated hitter Masataka Yoshida revealed that he had been playing through discomfort in his right shoulder. &#8220;When I had swing and misses I felt it a little bit, but I felt like I could keep swinging and playing so that&#8217;s why I kept playing,&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3686,"featured_media":87785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1071,35],"tags":[4455,6081,4783],"class_list":["post-87782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-redsox","category-mlb","category-news","tag-ha-seong-kim","tag-masataka-yoshida","tag-matt-mclain"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3686"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}