Injury problems cropping up again
Alonso hurts wrist, but X-rays negative; Hahn departs in third inning
OAKLAND — The A’s may have dodged one injury bullet Tuesday night in an 11-9 loss to the Miami Marlins, but it remains to be seen if they dodged two.
Starting pitcher Jesse Hahn came out of the game in the third inning after experiencing some right triceps pain. Then Yonder Alonso made an early exit after being hit on the right wrist by a pitch in the sixth inning.
Alonso, who broke the same hand a few years back, said he walked to the dugout feeling “that was the case all over again.”
Then in the dugout the pain decreased enough that Alonso felt he could continue. He came back onto the field as a runner and finished up the inning. But swelling started to happen, and he came out of the game before the seventh inning started.
An X-ray of the right hand and wrist revealed no break, so Alonso is left with a sore and painful right hand, but doesn’t seem to be headed to the disabled list. Manager Bob Melvin said when Alonso plays again will be up to the pain threshold, and that it would be a game-time decision on whether he plays in the series finale Wednesday afternoon.
Hahn’s status is much more ambiguous. While he came out of the game in the third inning, his velocity was down markedly in the second inning. He said he’d never had a triceps strain, and that it “was kind of a weird feeling.”
“Usually for me, when I have
elbow pain I feel it,” Hahn said. “I didn’t feel any of that. I wasn’t in any pain at all. It almost felt like dead arm.”
Asked about the possibility of making his next start, Hahn said “I haven’t even thought about that. I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve got to see how I feel tomorrow.”
If the A’s need to replace Hahn in the rotation, there is some comfort in that Jharel Cotton, who began the season in the rotation, is 2-0 at Triple-A Nashville with a 2.25 ERA and is coming off seven scoreless innings in his most recent start.
If Hahn winds up on the disabled list, it will be the 14th DL use by the A’s this season. That’s halfway to the Oakland club record of 27 set last year, and the A’s are only five games past the one-quarter mark of the season. As it is, the A’s are on pace for 46 DL uses this year.
The A’s have already had five starting pitchers on the disabled list in the first seven weeks of the season. Chris Bassitt is recovering from Tommy John surgery, Kendall Graveman missed 10 days with a right shoulder strain, Sonny Gray missed April with a right shoulder strain, Sean Manaea missed 16 days with a left shoulder strain and Daniel Mengden went on the DL to start the season after needing right foot surgery.
Graveman, Gray and Manaea all have returned to active duty. Mengden has been taken off the disabled list and assigned to Triple-A Nashville.
Alonso tried to put a positive spin on his exit with the hand not being broken. At the same time, he’d just spent four days on the bench with a left knee strain. He got back in the lineup Tuesday, hit a home run in his first at-bat back, then was out of the game a few innings later.
“We’re lucky; X-rays came back negative,” he said. “We’ve just got to move forward. Everything is good.”
Alonso was batting as the potential tying run with the A’s down 8-5 when he was hit on the wrist by reliever Jarlin Garcia. Alonso seemed to be done as he walked to the dugout, but he came back a few moments later and ran the bases as a single by Stephen Vogt cut the deficit to 8-6.
When the seventh inning started, however, Mark Canha had moved from center field to first base with Rajai Davis coming in to play center.
The A’s had a chance to get back into the game in the seventh after having scored twice in the sixth. Down 9-6, they loaded the bases on a couple of walks and a dropped pop fly from second baseman Dee Gordon. But Rajai Davis and Ryon Healy, who’d hit a three-run homer earlier, couldn’t come up with the needed offense.
Stephen Vogt’s n throwing error in the first inning was the club’s major league-leading 43rd of the season.
Oakland was out-hit n 19-8 but the game was kept close in part by a three-run Ryon Healy homer and a two-run shot in the ninth from Davis.
Home runs in three of n the four games against the Red Sox weren’t enough to get infielder Chad Pinder into the lineup Tuesday. But he will be back there Wednesday. Meanwhile, Canha, who had a couple of big homers of his own against Boston, got the start in center field.
“If Mark Canha wasn’t in there, you’d be saying the same thing,” Melvin said of Pinder’s absence. “We have guys who are swinging the bat well. Pinder will be in there tomorrow. When a guy is swinging the bat as well as he is, it’s tough not to have him in there.”
Reliever Ryan Dull, n went on the disabled list over the weekend with a strained right knee, is still feeling some discomfort. “We’ve got to wait for this thing to heal up a bit,” Melvin said. “There’s nothing surgically there, but he’s been sore the last few days. It may be some time before we get him back on the mound.” As for the amount of time Dull might miss, Melvin said “I don’t think I could even give you a projection.”
Sean Doolittle will n throw a full bullpen before Wednesday’s game, the first time for him since the left shoulder strain that sent him to the disabled list April 30. “We’ll have a better idea where he’s going from there,” Melvin said. He also said that once Doolittle begins to throw off a mound to live hitters “we’ll have a better timetable.”