9:52pm: Franco told reporters (including Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times) that he hopes to return to the big league club in around two weeks but conceded the specific timetable was fairly fluid.
1:05pm: The Rays announced Tuesday that shortstop Wander Franco has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a strained quadriceps. His spot on the active roster will go to righty Shawn Armstrong, whose contract has been selected from Triple-A Durham. Tampa Bay designated lefty Ben Bowden for assignment in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster for Armstrong.
Franco was lifted from yesterday’s game after his third hit of the day after he felt what manager Kevin Cash described as a “tug” in the same quad muscle that held him out of a few games a bit more than a week ago. He’ll now be sidelined for at least the next 10 days following a recurrence of the issue.
The Rays aren’t short on options to fill in for Franco, with Taylor Walls, Vidal Brujan and Isaac Paredes all on the big league roster at the moment. That’s not to say Franco’s absence won’t sting, of course, even if it’s abbreviated in nature. The consensus No. 1 overall prospect in baseball heading into the 2021 season, Franco has compiled a .281/.331/.447 slash through his first 498 plate appearances (121 wRC+) while turning in strong defensive ratings at shortstop.
Bowden, 27, was a waiver claim out of the Rockies organization a month ago. He’s yet to appear in the Majors this season but tossed 10 innings for Tampa Bay’s Triple-A affiliate in Durham, allowing a pair of runs on nine hits and seven walks with 10 strikeouts along the way. Those seven free passes in Durham represented a 15.9% walk rate — a continuation of the longstanding command issue that have plagued Bowden throughout his minor league career.
The Rockies selected Bowden with the 45th overall pick back in 2016. He’s at times looked like an intriguing prospect but also struggled with inconsistency over the years since that lofty selection in the draft. Bowden had terrific Double-A numbers in 2019 and was outstanding in Triple-A last year — 11 2/3 scoreless innings, 17-to-4 K/BB ratio — but his big league debut last season didn’t go nearly as smoothly. In 35 2/3 frames for the Rockies, Bowden was tagged for a 6.56 ERA with a 23.7% strikeout rate and a bloated 11.9% walk rate.
The Rays will have a week to trade Bowden, pass him through outright waivers or release him. He’s already been claimed once this season, and with any lefty who can miss bats, there’s always a chance another club will have some interest either in a small trade or via waiver claim.
This stinks for the game. We need our shining young stars to be healthy and contributing to help grow the game within our young fan base.
How much truth is there to the rumors that Tampa’s turf type contributed to this?
um, how would anyone be able to prove that?
I’m sure there have been studies done and observations made. Proof might be a bit high of a bar though.
im not saying it couldn’t be the case, just hard to pin that down as THE reason.
Probably a correlation study to leg injuries and innings played on non natural surfaces (ie tropicana or Houston)?
Strained quad? Struggling to find a possible connection to the turf.
People used to gravitate towards baseball……it was the game lots of people naturally liked. It isn’t like that anymore. It’s really not some young player coming up that is going to bring the fans back.The farther baseball gets away from its roots (the last 20-25 years especially)the less people will want to watch.
That, plus it’d be nice to actually be able to watch your local team live on the internet. I think those blackouts really hurt things.
Yes! Blackouts, and three true outcomes, are killing the game!! How do they expect to get new young fans when it’s near impossible for them to watch a game?
Hey, there’s some kids cutting across your lawn, better go yell at them…
Do deer and groundhogs count as kids?
Clown Show: “ The farther baseball gets away from its roots (the last 20-25 years especially)the less people will want to watch.”
What an excellent comment. I am a younger guy (comparatively), and I couldn’t agree with you more. Each year people become seemingly less interested in baseball, as do my friends, family, etc, because baseball itself has become less interesting with each change they make to improve it.
Just look at all the changes made to improve the game: ghost runner? Has that made a difference? No. They still go eleven or twelve innings, but now they put a dude on second for no reason.
TTO offense? Not MLB’s doing, but baseball teams shifted to that as a primary offense. It sucks. Home run 40 times a year, strike out 200 times, and walk 100-200 times – yuck.
The analytics-heavy operations drag the game down too. I don’t want to watch a vacated IF with Four OFers and a batter who still can’t get on base – it’s embarrassing, and boring.
Ugh, I could go on…. Sorry.
I’m with you, Clipper, but, believe it or not, a lot of fans seem to think the ghost runner is needed to pull in fans. I find that to be totally baseless but the opinion is out there.
Yeah, and I went into it with the thought that it {may} make the game more exciting. But, it hasn’t. It doesn’t speed it up, it doesn’t add any value, it simply changes the manner in which they keep the game tied, and imho, it’s easier to keep the game tied.
The only time it’s really made a difference is if the home team holds the visitors and they can just bunt/sac fly the bottom half of the inning to walk it off.
Anyway, enough of my soapbox. Hope you’re doing well, Cosmo. That new kid that came up was clutch in his first game for you guys, man.
#ghostrunnerforever
It instantly makes every extra inning compelling. I wholeheartedly embrace it while accepting all cons associated with it.
The next positive change could be
#movethemoundback
Seems like the more they try to “fix it” the more they mess it up. Some things are just overdone.
Anecdotally, the turf is something players have cited as taking a toll on their body. Carl Crawford said it took a toll on his body and Franco has told reporters this year that the surface has been hard to get used to as it has made him sore. Some of their elite speedy outfielders (Baldelli, Kiermaier) have had a hard time staying on the field as well. This is, of course, all anecdotal, but I’m sure there is a quantitative analysis that can be done (and probably already has been).
Is the turf under the clay he plays on?
Baldelli didn’t get injured or have a hard time staying healthy because of the turf; he tore his ACL in the offseason and the muscle problems and fatigue that led to his early retirement were caused by mitochondrial disease.
Kiermaier’s broken hand on a diving catch came on Comerica Park’s grass. His hip injury and his thumb injury were both caused on slides into first and second base, respectively.
Plus, Franco has played 65 of his career games on turf, and 59 on grass (his other games at DH). Hard to say the turf is why he’s had this issue.
Hey I miss the old days where turf made things a bit different. More triples, for example.
Crawford did quite well with triples in TB. They really fell off for him when he went to BOS.
Just because Baldelli’s and Kiermaier’s initial injuries (aside from the hand injury obviously) didn’t happen at the Trop doesn’t mean the turf didn’t contribute to them wearing down beforehand or made it difficult to come back from injuries afterwards.
Crawford’s hugest plus was his speed. Considering regression really set in for him at age 30 season, I have a hard time believing it was solely the turf. Not saying turf didn’t play a part. Regression was coming for him, as speed is first thing starts to regress. Nobody likes to admit that age takes its toll, it’s inevitable tho as to date no human has won against father time.
Garry Templeton’s stats suffered once he moved off turf. But like the example you cite, there were plenty of other factors such as knee trouble.
Franco missing a couple weeks isn’t going to hurt the game. A season-ending injury could do that. This is likely a couple weeks missed. Standard injury.
So……is this “turf knee?”
It’s interesting…last news report I recall using the term, “tug” was when Reece McGuire was arrested at Walmart.
I couldn’t remember which Toronto catcher was caught “tugging” the parking lot!
Yep, now he’s on the ChiSox. Every time TA says, “did you hear what he called me?”, Reece responds, “that’s nothing, you should hear what I was caught saying to myself…..at Walmart!”
I wonder if they only shake left hands on the Sox now? The Reece Rule, perhaps?
Crawford did quite well with triples in TB. They really fell off for him when he went to BOS.
Oh no! What will Topps and Panini do? The price of the 3,000 1/1 refractory plasma cosmic red game clipped toenails cards are plummeting and no one is going to join breaks to chase.
If the Rays played in Montreal this wouldn’t have happened – although playing on Olympique stadium’s turf was a big reason why Andre Dawson thought his knees were damaged…
So, depending on the severity of it, he could be out for a few weeks to a few months.
Instead of all these ridiculous rule changes, MLB needs to focus on keeping their star players on the field. That is what brings fans out to the park. Not some ghost runner on 2nd base or banning the shift.
I don’t think preventing injuries to specific players is within the realm of human control
Actually, there are companies out there working on injury risk-assessment technology. For example, WHOOP is one of those companies involved in that industry. I’ve also wrote on here that we should be performing MRIs on pitchers, preferably ever inning, but the tech isn’t ready for that, so after every appearance is completed to see how far the ligament has stretched and whether it has returned to the normal size or not. Due to the big contracts sign paid out, growth of this injury prevention tech will only grow as owners will want to keep those players on the field as often as possible.
Oh no doubt at that level things can be done. Or at least tried to be done. Hopefully they can at least mitigate the situation but injuries are inevitable.
MLB IS TOTALLY RUINING BASEBALL.
Tickets for Round Rock Express
WENT FROM $20 TO $50.
MLB SUCKS
MANFRED SUCKS
BASEBALL IS NOTHING BUT A RIP OFF!!!!
MLB SUCKS!!!!!
Basically a tourist trap
You can still sit on the lawn for $14.00.
And by paying that amount, no one can tell you to get off their lawn.