Justin Turner leaves game after getting hit in face by pitch

It is fair to say that the Boston Red Sox have had a pretty rough run of things lately. From Xander Bogaerts leaving in free agency to losing Trevor Story to an elbow injury, the big ticket news items for Boston have more often than not been negative. One notable bright spot was that the team did sign Justin Turner to a one year deal this offseason, but even that has taken a turn.

While playing a spring training game against the Tigers, Turner was batting against right-hander Matt Manning and Manning had a pitch get away from him up and in. The result was legitimately scary.

Justin is a tough dude without question, so to see him on ground bleeding and having medical staff attend to him was jarring. We have seen a lot of tough injuries like this happen in the past such as Kevin Pillar a couple of years ago who turned out to be okay reasonably quickly to Jason Heyward during his time with the Atlanta Braves which ended up breaking his jaw and changed the course of his career potentially.

What an injury to Justin Turner could mean for the Red Sox

The Red Sox were already looking pretty thin in the infield ranks with shortstop still an unsettled question and Turner was also pretty clearly going to get the bulk of the designated hitter appearances before today. If Turner has to miss an extended period of time, this could make it more likely that Bobby Dalbec gets more playing time although a rotating cast of characters is also a possibility.

For now, though, we are just going to hope that Turner is okay. Baseball, at its heart, is a game for our enjoyment and it is times like these that put into perspective that the laws of physics at work in these games are sometimes not kind to the human body. Once there are updates on Turner's condition, as well as a timeline for his return to the field, we will pass those along.