ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Red Sox lefthander David Price is scheduled to undergo surgery on Thursday to remove a triangular fibrocartilage complex cyst from his wrist.
“We want to get it over with and start the offseason the right way . . . and be ready for next year,” manager Alex Cora said prior to Sunday’s 7-4 win over the Tampa Bay Rays.
Dr. Matthew Liebman will perform the procedure at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. Price was diagnosed with the issue in early August and has made only one start since, on Sept. 1, and pitched two innings.
The expectation is that Price will be ready for spring training. Cora’s optimistic — while also remaining cautious — that Price will also have a normal offseason.
Advertisement
“Obviously you never know,” Cora said. “They could go in there and find something else. But as of now, everything seems like, take care of the cyst and he should be fine. I don’t know what the recovery time is, but it seems like it’s something simple.”
Price, 34, finished the season 7-5 with a 4.28 earned run average over 22 starts. He is 46-24 with a 3.84 ERA in four seasons with the Sox.
Rodriguez aims at 20
Eduardo Rodriguez will take the ball again Tuesday, looking to add on to what’s already been an impressive season.
Rodriguez heads into Tuesday’s series opener in Texas sporting a 3.53 ERA. In his last four starts, he’s surrendered just two earned runs over 25⅔ innings.
With 18 wins, Rodriguez has two starts remaining in his quest to reach 20. Despite the win in baseball not holding as much value as it used to, Cora believes there’s still something to be said about 20 wins.
“Ask [Blake] Snell, Charlie [Morton], and [Price],” Cora said. “With Eduardo, earlier in the season he was giving up five, but we were scoring eight. Lately it’s been like we don’t score and they score one. But it’s something about the number. It’s like runs scored. If you score 100 you did a lot of good things. If you win 20, you did a lot of good things.”
Advertisement
Rodriguez said last week after his start against the Philadelphia Phillies that his first goal is to get to 200 innings (he’s at 191⅓ ).
“If 20 wins happen, it happens,” Rodriguez said. “If not, I’m happy with what I have.”
Hembree is hopeful
Cora’s said the last couple days that he thinks reliever Heath Hembree will return for the series against the Texas Rangers. He reiterated that Sunday, adding that his appearance will probably come in a bullpen game, which allows Hembree to have a bit more structure.
Betts feeling good
Coming into the Tampa series, the Sox’ plan was for Mookie Betts to play three out of four games, so Sunday was his scheduled day off. He was the team’s designated hitter Friday and played right field on the turf at Tropicana Field Saturday.
The turf at the Rogers Centre in Toronto was what aggravated Betts’s left foot, but he came out of Saturday’s contest feeling good, Cora said.
“He moved well [Saturday],” Cora said. “He ran the bases well.”
Betts went 2 for 5 Saturday with two singles. He will be back in right field Monday.
Correction: A previous version of this story included the wrong day for Eduardo Rodriguez’s start this week. He will start Tuesday.
Advertisement
Julian McWilliams can be reached at julian.mcwilliams@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @byjulianmack.