The Red Sox will not know until today if Jacoby Ellsbury will be in the lineup for tomorrow night's series opener against the Yankees. Ellsbury left yesterday's 6-3 loss to the Rangers after the fifth inning with a strained right shoulder.
Ellsbury jammed his shoulder sliding awkwardly into second base in the third inning, and he aggravated it twice - once making a tremendous stumbling catch in the triangle in the fourth, and again when he swung in the fifth.
"I banged it up a little on the slide, and then I tried to fight through it," Ellsbury said. "When I made the catch, I landed on my right shoulder and made it even worse than that. It's really not feeling too good right now, but we have the offday to get it looked at."
The specific injury is a sprain to the AC joint in the shoulder, which manager Terry Francona said is preferable to other possibilities. He called Ellsbury's shoulder "tender," and Ellsbury said it was "throbbing" after the game.
"There was a sharp pain in there when I originally did it," Ellsbury said. "When I went back into the field, I was hoping it would kind of wear off, just be one of those that went away. Unfortunately, I landed on it again and kind of made it worse."
Ellsbury considered coming out of the game after the slide.
"I always try to stay in the game," Ellsbury said. "But if I stayed in the game, it would be one of those things that would maybe make it worse than something that's maybe a day or two, make it something longer, maybe a couple weeks. It was definitely the right decision, coming out of the game. Hopefully, it's just something that I wake up [and it's better]."
Ellsbury's shoulder is OK structurally, Francona said, but the pain and soreness may hold him out tomorrow night.
Ellsbury's gut feeling?
"I don't know," he said. "The first step is get it looked at, see what the diagnosis is, and go from there. Hopefully, being optimistic, I'll be in the lineup. But we'll see."
A bold and unusual piece of hustle led to Ellsbury's injury in the first place. With the bases loaded in the third, Ellsbury lashed a grounder at second baseman Ian Kinsler. The ball skipped off Kinsler's foot and into shallow right-center.
Marlon Byrd, in center, picked the ball up as Ellsbury made a wide turn. He lofted the ball in, and Ellsbury broke for second. The throw arrived in more than enough time, but shortstop Omar Vizquel was stunned that Ellsbury had tried for second. He slid in head-first, safe.
"It was like, 'Oh, where'd this guy come from?' " Ellsbury said. "That's kind of how I landed it on it weird. I thought it was going to be a bang-bang play, so I was going to try to get around the tag. I landed kind of on my right shoulder. I just hurt it."
They made three outs on the bases - Kevin Youkilis was picked off second base in the first, Jason Bay was caught stealing in the second, and David Ortiz was caught stealing in the sixth.
"I think our base running was terrible," Mike Lowell said. "You're going to have days like that."
Youkilis said he had taken a typically large lead off second with two outs, but he never noticed Kinsler sneaking over from second before Vicente Padilla twirled and fired a perfect throw to nab him.
Bay's caught stealing was typical - he was gunned down trying to take second with two outs.
Ortiz's was not - it was David Ortiz trying to steal a base. Francona said he encourages Ortiz to keep teams honest if they don't hold him on, which would in turn open up a wider hole on the right side for batters. The problem was, simply, that Ortiz left too soon.
"Kind of like a tennis elbow thing, where it kind of wears on you after a while," Drew said. "This one started minor, and it really kind of graduated into being a really strong tendinitis."
Drew "gritted through" batting practice and games. When the pain became intense while he jogged off the field or raised his arm to catch fly balls, Drew decided he should tell Francona. They spoke and he planned to take the weekend off, giving Drew 72 hours with today's offday to rest his shoulder.
Drew has played 50 of 57 games while mostly avoiding injuries. He received a shot in his previously chronic lower back during spring training, and the possibility for more existed. But Drew hasn't considered another shot, and his lower back has not been an issue.
"I've been great," Drew said. "We've got a really nice routine going ever since spring training. It's periodically stiff from time to time, but that's normal. I'm very happy with it. You never know when it might fall out again, but with this strengthening program hopefully it will stay right where it's at."
Adam Kilgore can be reached at akilgore@globe.com 
