Jung’s tough luck continues after suffering broken wrist
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — At some point for Josh Jung, it becomes not so much about the breaks, but the breaking point.
How many of the former push him to the latter?
On Monday, the Texas Rangers beat Tampa Bay 9-3. Jung, a former Macarthur star, had a threerun homer in the first inning, a screaming RBI single in the fourth and left for an X-ray in the ninth after taking a Phil Maton sinker off his right wrist. Adding insult to the injury: He was hit by the pitch on a swing. He immediately knew. He launched the bat, put his hands atop his helmet and walked off the field with manager Bruce Bochy and athletic trainer Matt Lucero.
By the time the game ended, his wrist was in a plastic cast and Bochy was searching for words to describe another bad blow for a 26-year-old, in his second full season, who has already dealt with two other broken bones, a torn labrum and missed all but the final exhibition in Arizona this spring with a calf injury.
“I just feel horrible,” Bochy said. “He’s had such tough luck. I really can’t think of another (young player with such a troubled injury history). He’s pretty down, as you can imagine, and he should be, because he was coming off that injury and really swinging the bat well.
“It’s not easy to have a setback like this when you’ve had enough of them. But he’s got to tell himself he’ll be back. He’s young. I told him that.”
Monday should have been about one of the Rangers’ University of Florida alums. Jacksonville’s Dane Dunning took a one-hit shutout to the seventh. Or about Wyatt Langford, of Trenton, Fla., playing his first MLB game back in his home state. Or it should have been about Jung’s big first week. Oh, it was about Jung, just not about anything good.
The injury came after Maton had hit consecutive batters — Evan Carter and Adolis García — with pitches in a fit of wildness.
The García plunking came an inning after he hit his third homer in the season’s first four games and the 100th of his career. It also forced in the Rangers’ eighth run. Jung got ahead 2-1, then started to swing at a sinker up and in. He couldn’t stop the swing. And he couldn’t get out of the way of the pitch.
“It’s definitely a tough time for him,” second baseman Marcus Semien said. “It’s depressing or whatever you want to call it. You just never want to be in that situation. It’s up to us to cheer him up.”
Jung has handled a slew of injuries gracefully since 2021 but couldn’t bring himself to address his situation after the game. Who could blame him? What is there to say?
The next step is a return to Dallas to be further examined. But surgery is definitely a possibility. Eli White was the last Ranger to suffer a fractured wrist in a game, in 2022. He hurt the wrist in June, had surgery and did not play again during the season due to other health issues. In 2018, Elvis Andrus was hit near the elbow by a pitch in early April, fracturing a bone. He had surgery and missed eight weeks.
Bochy did not want to speculate on the amount of time Jung would miss. The Rangers have options to replace him at third. The presence of Ezequiel Duran and Josh Smith give them a platoon to use at third.
Jung has twice previously suffered fractures and required surgical fixes for both. In 2021, he underwent a procedure to repair a stress fracture in his left foot suffered during spring training. He missed two months. Last year, he had pins placed in his left thumb after fracturing it on a line drive. He missed seven weeks, returned for the final week of the season and then hit .308 with an .867 OPS while starting every game of the postseason run.
Before the physical rehab comes the emotional part of it. Jung, who has long embraced sports psychology, has bounced back well in the past. But rehab and recovery gets old, especially when you’ve spent most of the last month doing just that.
“This is not like he pulled a hamstring from not being in the weight room; these are all freak things,” said outfielder Travis Jankowski, whose early career was hindered by a number of injuries, including a fractured left wrist that cost him the first half of the 2019 season. “The thing that sucks is you want to be out there with the guys, you want to contribute, you want to do everything you can to be grinding with the guys, and when something like this happens, you don’t necessarily feel like a part of the team. That hurts.
“I’ve been there, plenty,” he added. “You just have to make sure you’re mentally in a good spot. It’s all about keeping your head in a space where you know you’re going to help us win. Where you are not rushing back. Because you suffer. The team suffers. It’s an allaround mess. He just needs to take the time he needs.”
He needs time. The break needs to heal. The Rangers just hope the breaks heal before Jung reaches a breaking point.