Major League Baseball

Red Sox's Justin Turner receives 16 stitches after getting hit by pitch

Published Mar. 9, 2023 2:28 p.m. ET

Boston Red Sox third baseman Justin Turner has received 16 stitches after taking pitch to the face — somewhere between the nose and just above the mouth — in the bottom of the first inning of Monday’s game against the Detroit Tigers.

X-rays of the area came back negative, indicating that Turner dodged a major head injury, per MLB.com.

The 38-year-old Turner fell to the ground after getting hit by right-hander Matt Manning's fastball. Medical personnel rushed to the plate, and Turner was bleeding and had a towel on his face as he walked off the field.

Turner was immediately removed from the game, which the Red Sox went on to win 7-1, and was taken to a local hospital in an ambulance, according to the team.

Manning stressed the pitch was not intentional after the game, noting that he planned to reach out to Turner and apologize.

"It was a complete accident; ball just got away," Manning said. "I got a swing and miss on a ball kind of up in the zone, so I tried to go back to it, and it just got away from me."

"We were lucky," Red Sox manager Alex Cora said Tuesday before Boston's 10-2 win over the Atlanta Braves. "He's in good spirits. [Red Sox chief baseball officer] Chaim [Bloom] visited him this morning. … I don't know how long [the recovery is] going to take, but the fact that there [are] no fractures, he’s in a good place. We feel good about it.

"Anything that is above the shoulders, it’s always scary. So you hear [it], you go and you just react. There was a lot of blood there. So it was just like, ‘Let's get everybody there and try to help him out.' He was coherent."

Turner is a 14-year MLB veteran and made his Red Sox debut on Feb. 28 after signing a $15 million, one-year deal with Boston that includes a player option for 2024 during the offseason.

The two-time All-Star spent the past nine seasons of his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Last season, he hit .278 with 13 homers and 81 RBIs in 128 games.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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