SEATTLE (AP) — The Seattle Mariners will head into the offseason with 4 key players wanting downtime or surgical operation to heal accidents, together with AL Rookie of the Year favourite Julio Rodríguez.
Jerry Dipoto, Seattle’s president of baseball operations, mentioned Wednesday that Rodríguez broke his left pinkie all through Game 3 of the AL Division Series in opposition to Houston. Dipoto mentioned an go out examination this week printed the injury to the 21-year-old All-Star, however he’s no longer anticipated to wish surgical operation.
Also wanting downtime to get better from accidents are catcher Cal Raleigh (thumb) and standout reliever Andrés Muñoz (foot), whilst outfielder Jesse Winker has already passed through one among two operations had to restore accidents he handled all through the season.
“There’s quite a few,” Dipoto mentioned.
Rodríguez were given harm sliding headfirst into 2nd base on a double within the 8th inning of what was an 18-inning marathon the Mariners misplaced 1-0 to Houston that ended their season. Rodríguez additionally handled again and wrist accidents all through the season, with the decrease again pressure doping up overdue within the season and costing him time when the Mariners had been pushing for a postseason spot.
“He just needs to have some downtime, get his body feeling good again,” Seattle supervisor Scott Servais mentioned. “He went through a lot. He’s never played this much baseball, certainly at this level, the intensity and the emotional toll that it takes on you when you go through a season like that.”
Raleigh performed the general month of the season with a torn ligament in his left thumb, a painful injury that by no means were given worse however by no means progressed. Raleigh is predicted to look a hand specialist within the coming days to resolve if surgical operation will likely be wanted.
Raleigh was once an enormous piece of Seattle’s run to the postseason, together with the house run on Sept. 30 that clinched its first playoff berth since 2001 and some other lengthy ball in Game 1 of the wild-card collection in Toronto.
“The physical and emotional toughness that he showed in the final six weeks of this season when he was playing a lot, and especially in September when he was playing through a pretty painful injury,” Dipoto mentioned. “Especially when you catch baseballs that are flying at very high speeds with unpredictable movement. I can’t say enough about the job that Cal did and gutted his way through it and had huge moments for us.”
There was once some query in regards to the scenario with Winker when he wasn’t across the staff all through its postseason run. That was once cleared up just a little when Dipoto mentioned Winker was once in New York having surgical operation on his left knee and is predicted to go through some other operation to fix a subject matter together with his neck.
Winker struggled badly in his first season with the Mariners after being the center piece of a spring coaching industry that introduced him and 3rd baseman Eugenio Suarez to Seattle. Suarez exceeded expectancies each on the plate and within the box, whilst Winker was once a defensive legal responsibility and hit simply .219, greater than 80 issues not up to he did in 2021 when he was once an All-Star with Cincinnati.
The Mariners imagine Winker can rebound, however he might finally end up combating for a job subsequent season.
“(He) has a really good track record hitting in this league,” Servais mentioned. “He has other some things you need to improve on, yes. There’s no question about that and he’ll be the first admit it. So I think there’s a spot for him on this club going forward.”
Seattle doesn’t face many unfastened agent questions, however the largest comes to proper fielder Mitch Haniger, who’s coming off some other season that was once derailed by means of accidents. When he was once wholesome, Haniger seemed nice. But he ignored greater than 4 months with an ankle injury.
“I think everyone would like to see us find a way to find common ground with Mitch,” common supervisor Justin Hollander mentioned. “But players work a long time to get to free agency. It’s really hard to get six years of service to get there and I know Mitch, as much as he wants to be here, also wants to gauge what else is out there. So we’ll keep talking.”
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