Boston Red Sox left-hander James Paxton, currently on the 60-day injured list with a partial tear in his right calf muscle, intends to retire after the season ends, he told Rob Bradford during an appearance on the Baseball Isn't Boring podcast.
Paxton, 35, will not be eligible to return from the shelf until after the regular season concludes. That means he's already made his final appearance unless two things occur: 1) the Red Sox overcome their four-game deficit in the race for the final American League wild-card spot; and 2) that he's fit to return during the postseason.
If this is the end for Paxton, it's an unfortunate but fitting one. Injuries ravaged his career, limiting him to 177 big-league appearances over parts of 11 big-league seasons. This year marked the first time he had made more than 20 appearances in a campaign since 2019. (Granted, he came one short of tallying that many in 2023.) Paxton was almost always effective when healthy, compiling a 110 ERA+ and 13.8 Wins Above Replacement.
Nicknamed "Big Maple" because of his height and Canadian heritage, Paxton will probably best be remembered for no-hitting the Blue Jays in Toronto on May 8, 2018. At the time, he was a member of the Seattle Mariners, his original organization and a club with which he enjoyed two stints. All but one of his 103 outings in the Pacific Northwest came during his initial arrival in the majors. From 2014-18, he tallied a 3.50 ERA (114 ERA+) and a 3.70 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 558 innings.
The Mariners subsequently traded Paxton to the New York Yankees as part of a four-player swap. Paxton would also spend time with the Los Angeles Dodgers, with whom he started this season before being shipped to Boston for his second tour with the Red Sox.
