Red Sox’s Trevor Story Offers Update On ‘Very Unique’ Injury Recovery

Red Sox shortstop Trevor Story is plugging along in his recovery from shoulder surgery.

Story back in April underwent an arthroscopic repair of the posterior labrum, with an open reduction and internal fixation of the fracture of the glenoid rim. He’s expected to miss the remainder of the 2024 season.

The injury — which Story suffered while diving for a ground ball — is no joke, something the 31-year-old has learned throughout his rehab process.

“It’s been a challenging process, man,” Story told Tom Caron and Alex Speier this week on the latest episode of the “310 to Left” podcast. “I couldn’t have imagined it to be this hard at the beginning. I kind of expected it to be something that was a little easier than the elbow (injury), and that’s certainly not the case. I think shoulder surgery, in general, the people I’ve talked to, they say it’s one of the most challenging ones. And it’s turned out to be a unique injury, to where not just the labrum but the fracture, the place of the fracture and just kind of things that you can’t see that go on. You can see the fracture, you can see the labrum, but there’s just a lot of trauma that happened to my shoulder that you can’t really see.

“Just being patient, and that’s been the hardest part. But given where I’m at now, as opposed to a month ago, is crazy the amount of progress that we’ve made. So, I’m really happy about that and that’s why it makes sense to be out here with my (personal trainers) out here in California. Because like I said, it’s a very unique injury and something that they haven’t seen a lot of it, but they’ve seen a little bit more of it than anybody else, so it makes sense.”

It’s been a tumultuous Red Sox tenure for Story, who signed with Boston as a free agent before the 2022 season. He’s shown flashes of being the productive player he was for six years with the Colorado Rockies, even providing Gold Glove-caliber defense at second base in his first season with Boston before transitioning back to his natural position, but injuries have been an issue.

The setback he suffered this season was especially unfortunate, as Story really started to emerge as a clubhouse leader and looked poised to finally build momentum with the Red Sox. Now, he’s facing an uphill battle.

“That’s kind of a tough thing to pinpoint right now because of the uniqueness of the injury and just kind of the time that we had to give it to relax and calm down from the surgery,” Story said regarding the next steps in his recovery process. “I think, ideally, I certainly see myself doing a lot of baseball activity in July, August. Hopefully, towards the end of September, I can be feeling somewhat like a baseball player. So, that’s definitely my goal, is to get some good baseball reps in toward the end of the year.

“The same old adage — just one day at a time and not trying to look too far ahead. But there’s a lot of truth to that, especially when it comes to this type of injury, and just got to give it the respect of the trauma that took place. But I feel good about the way it’s going and the progress that I’ve made.”

Story appeared in eight games this season before suffering the injury, during which he batted .226/.294/.323 with four RBIs in 34 plate appearances.