Twins catcher Mitch Garver exited tonight’s game after a play at the plate and has been diagnosed with a high ankle sprain, the team told reporters (Twitter link via Dan Hayes of The Athletic). He’ll be further evaluated tomorrow.
Garver was injured on what ultimately proved to be a game-saving play in the eighth inning; Byron Buxton threw out Shohei Ohtani to end the frame in a 4-3 game, but Ohtani slid into Garver’s planted leg. Garver had to be helped off the field and was unable to place weight on his left leg (video link).
While Garver is hardly a household name, any notable injury for the 28-year-old would be a sizable loss for the Twins. He’s off to a blistering start to the 2019 season, hitting at a .329/.418/.747 clip with nine long balls — including a two-run shot that proved to be the difference tonight — through his first 91 plate appearances. Combined with infielder/catcher Willians Astudillo (.290/.303/.484) and a resurgent Jason Castro (.245/.362/.612), Garver has helped to comprise a highly productive trio of catching options for the first-place Twins.
The presence of both Castro and Astudillo on the roster suggests that the Twins wouldn’t need to call up a catcher in the perhaps likely event that Garver requires a stint on the injured list. Minnesota doesn’t have any other catchers on its 40-man roster anyhow, so it seems likely that they’d continue with the Astudillo/Castro pairing, perhaps with Astudillo working in a slightly more conventional role in a two-catcher setup.
Son of a B. Didn’t need that.
Mitch Garver is underrated on his own team. I have no idea why this guy wasn’t playing more. He’s been hitting everything.
Looks like Sano time!
It’s a shame that it took an injury to get the guy noticed, but wow, Garver is off to an amazing start. Kind of like James McCann with the White Sox, another overlooked catcher hitting the cover off the ball. Such a rare and valuable commodity.
I thought catchers weren’t supposed to block the plate anymore?
Where does it say he was blocking the plate?
I don’t think Ohtani was sliding any other direction than to home plate so yeah, sounds like he was blocking the plate.
I was making an assumption. Players usually slide towards the plate not the catcher. I’ve not seen the play but I have seen plenty of others games on MLB Network where it looked like the catcher was blocking the plate. I was just wondering. It’s my thing…..
He wasn’t blocking the plate. Watch the video. Garver was standing out in front of home plate, made the catch in front of home plate, planted his left foot while turning to apply the tag and the left foot was probably an inch or two into the plane of home plate. Ohtani slid spikes out directly into Garver’s ankle. It wasn’t truly dirty or anything. The contact was intentional hard playing, but legal. It was similar to the ruling on the Rizzo vs. Diaz slide except Ohtani wasn’t taking out a defenseless player who had his back turned like Rizzo did.
His leg was clearly crossing the plate. Granted it’s not your previous definition of blocking the plate, I would still define his placement of blocking the plate.
I believe the new rule is that catchers cannot block the plate unless they have possession of the ball. Garver was standing in front of the plate, then slide his foot in front to block once he caught the ball. Everything was legal by both players, just an unfortunate outcome with Garver’s injury. Hopefully he is only down for a couple of weeks. Since Sano has been called back up now, Marwin Gonzalez will move back to super-util and the end of the line for La Tortuga might be coming near…whenever Garver comes back.
That’s what he gets for hitting 2 homers off degrom last month
Could this be an effect of the juiced ball? Popups/line drives reaching the outfield instead of being caught by infielders? Fly balls reaching the stands instead of being caught? Hard ground balls finding holes in the infield because fielders can’t catch up to them? I wonder if Fangraphs has done a study on this? I am a retired Luddite with limited internet access.
I don’t know where to find this.
I would be fascinated if Trade Rumors did a post on this!
Just stop.
Ah, come on! It’s just a thought. Aren’t you ever curious WHY stuff happens? I guess not…..
When are we going to done with “Captain Do nothing” All he can do is hit fast balls. He Can’t hit a off speed pitch if it was the size of a beach ball,won’t stay in shape no work ethics.and all we here is he the greatest. Do some thing or get rid of him.