The shoulder injury suffered by Jacoby Ellsbury in the Red Sox' Friday-afternoon home opener didn't look good when it happened, and now the rumor looks even worse:

Ellsbury has a dislocation or partial dislocation of his shoulder, according to baseball source. Minimum of six weeks; could be longer

— Gordon Edes (@GordonEdes) April 14, 2012

Minimum of six weeks. So let's assume eight weeks. That places Ellsbury's return in the middle of June. Carl Crawford's still on the Disabled List, and really hasn't played well since May of last year. At the moment, the list of healthy Red Sox outfielders is precisely this: Darnell McDonald, Cody Ross, Ryan Sweeney. They're probably going to call up Che-Hsuan Lin -- who didn't rank among the organization's top 30 prospects before this season -- simply because there's an unwritten baseball rule that says you have to carry four outfielders on your roster.

It's early, still. But it's starting to get a little scary.