BOSTON — Red Sox first baseman Triston Casas is cautiously optimistic about his recovery from a ruptured patellar tendon, participating in “just about all baseball activities” but remaining unsure if he’ll be ready for the start of the 2026 season. The injury, which required season-ending surgery last May, has Casas carefully navigating his return to play.
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The Red Sox star is progressing well but acknowledges a full return by Opening Day isn’t guaranteed.
- Triston Casas is actively involved in baseball activities as he recovers from a patellar tendon rupture.
- He hopes to participate in spring training games, but isn’t certain about being ready for the regular season opener.
- Marcelo Mayer and Roman Anthony are also progressing well in their respective recoveries.
- Starter Kutter Crawford is expected to have a normal spring training after addressing previous injuries.
“I definitely want to make an impact from the first day,” Casas said Saturday at Fenway Fest. “That’d be 11 months from the surgery. So that would be a tight squeeze in terms of the relative overall consensus of how long it would take to recover from what I had injured, but it’s not unrealistic. I’ve talked to other players who have had the injury and they’ve said 11 months is very reasonable.”
Casas is focused on increasing his activity volume without rushing the process. He noted that the 12-month mark is typically when athletes return to full activity, leaving the final decision dependent on how he feels in a few months. “I like the way I’m progressing. I’ve met every benchmark that I’ve had to up to now. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I surprise myself a lot just expecting pain in certain exercises that I don’t have and I’m happy about that.”
Mayer, Anthony Also on Track
Outfielder Marcelo Mayer, who underwent season-ending wrist surgery on August 20, anticipates being fully prepared for spring training workouts. “I’m pretty much doing full baseball activity, like a normal ramp-up, as I would for a regular season going into spring training,” Mayer said. “So I feel like I’m in a good spot.”
Roman Anthony is also expected to be a full participant at the beginning of spring training. He suffered an oblique injury in early September, which sidelined him for the final weeks of the season and the postseason. “I had about a month and a half of hardcore rehab,” Anthony said. “And then by like that two-month mark around Thanksgiving, maybe a little bit before that, I was finally throwing med balls hard, rotating hard, doing things where I say, OK, I could get into a cage right now, be confident that I could swing and not only swing, but take a pitch and kind of emulate that same check swing-ish movement that happened. It was a work in progress.”
Although the Red Sox had hoped for Anthony’s return during the ALCS, his rehab was slowed after the team’s elimination. “It sucked, but it was huge for me in the sense that I learned a lot about myself, about my body and what it takes for me to get ready each and every day, what I need to take to 2026 in order to play 162 and beyond,” Anthony added.
Crawford Targeting Normal Spring Training
Starter Kutter Crawford is also aiming for a typical spring training after missing last year due to both a knee injury and wrist surgery. “At this point, it’s just normal progression,” he said. “I got off the slope yesterday, and it felt good. And now we just build up the mound progression.”
