Rafael Devers’ name was conspicuously absent from Thursday night’s lineup, as the Red Sox continue to manage a nagging left-shoulder issue.

“He’s battling with the shoulder,” Alex Cora said before the series finale with the Baltimore Orioles. “You can see on his swing… You can see his reactions, very similar to a few years ago with the elbow.”

This is the second time the shoulder has kept Devers out of the lineup within the first two weeks of the season; during the opening series in Seattle, he sat out Friday and Saturday and revealed that the shoulder had been bothering him since spring training. The Red Sox are trying to avoid putting Devers on the injured list, but Cora wouldn’t rule it out. “Hopefully not,” he said.

“It’s too early to be grinding, that’s the way I see it,” the manager said. “He’s too important for us for him to be grinding with his swing and making it worse. He just felt yesterday, he needed a day… I know every day matters, but if he needs one, two, three (days) or if it’s an IL stint then so be it, but we have to take care of this.”

The middle infield continues to pull players into a black hole of injuries. After making his first start with the Red Sox on Wednesday, infielder Romy Gonzalez had his left wrist in a brace in the clubhouse the following afternoon and was scheduled for X-rays.

“He woke up this morning sore, it was on that play he made,” Cora explained.

“It’s obviously pretty brutal,” he said of getting hurt in his first Red Sox start, “but thankfully, I don’t think it’s too serious so I don’t think it’ll be something that’ll take too long to heal from.”

With Trevor Story done for the year and Gonzalez “day to day,” how will the Red Sox reinforce the middle infield? “We got guys over there,” Cora said of Triple-A.

Despite this shocking stretch of injuries, the manager was still in good spirits. “(Coach) Ramon (Vázquez) is taking ground balls, too, I’ve been losing weight, so you never know, man,” he joked. “The minimum (salary) is a lot right now, so you never know.”

Reinforcements are also on the way in the form of utility-man Rob Refsnyder and infielder Vaughn Grissom. Refsnyder struck out in each of his three at-bats in his first rehab game with Triple-A Worcester on Wednesday, leading Cora to joke that it was good for him to get that kind of performance out of the way.

Grissom is scheduled to fly to Syracuse on Thursday evening to join the WooSox on their road trip. He’ll play his first rehab game Friday.