Rays first baseman/outfielder Harold Ramirez left today’s game after being hit on his hand by a pitch. The club later announced to reporters, including Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, that he has a broken right thumb and will be re-evaluated in two weeks.
Ramirez, 27, has been somewhat quietly having an excellent breakout season in Tampa. Although he’s only walking 6.1% of the time, he’s also only striking out at a 13.7% clip, producing a batting line of .329/.376/.446. The resulting wRC+ of 141 indicates he’s been 41% better than the league average hitter. Among hitters with at least 250 plate appearances, that’s the 23rd highest mark across the majors, just ahead of Pete Alonso.
While any team would surely suffer to lose that kind of production for a few weeks, it’s especially noteworthy for a Rays team that’s had a host of injuries to deal with, including in the outfield. When Ramirez is inevitably placed on the injured list, he will join Kevin Kiermaier and Manuel Margot. In Kiermaier’s case, his injury has the potential to be season-ending, per Topkin, though more details will come on that after he sees a specialist in the weeks to come. Margot might return at some point this season, but not soon. Even if Ramirez’s thumb is okay in a couple of weeks, he will likely need to get in some rehab work in order to get back into game shape.
That leaves the club with Randy Arozarena, Josh Lowe, Brett Phillips and Luke Raley as their regular outfielders. Arozarena is having another good season, but the rest are all hitting at below-average rates right now, with none of the three producing a wRC+ higher than 71 on the year, coming into today’s game. Brandon Lowe has played outfield in the past but only just returned from the IL in the last couple of days. He played second base yesterday but is the designated hitter today. Vidal Bruján is in the minors and could be recalled, though he also struggled in his MLB action this year, producing a wRC+ of just 41.
Despite all their injury woes, the Rays began today in the top American League Wild Card spot with a record of 50-41, meaning they will likely look to do some buying ahead of the August 2 trade deadline. There were a number of outfielders featured on MLBTR’s recent list of top trade candidates, including Andrew Benintendi, David Peralta, Ian Happ, and many others.
With the way fingers are breaking today, I’m going to go put on some gloves.
Mandatory oven mitts.
Where is you started?
Get the right size gloves. Quick way to break a finger is wearing gloves the wrong size for your hands. In rare cases, a finger goes in … and never comes back out.
Play safe.
Wonderful; another Rays injury.
Ouch!
Get better soon HR, you have been playing well.
Those are good initials for a hitter.
Time go trade for Laureano.
Laureano would not be eligible for postseason (if the Rays make it, of course), good player but I’d like to see them ask about J.Profar, can play outfield, since KK and Margot, are out extended and the youngsters, aren’t ready yet.
Remember when batting titles were a big deal. Adding insult to injury, Harold’s not going to win it now. Oh well, the Rays probably wouldn’t let him qualify anyway.
All I know is pain at this point
I feel it too!
Aww there goes h ram
Noooo! Great players going down today
Meh, put a band-aid on it.
Rub some dirt on it ya sissy.
The pitcher who hit him should be disqualified from play for the same period of time that Ramirez is unable to play in the majors for his team.. Why should the pitcher who hit him and the pitcher’s team not also incur a loss as well?
Don’t give me that BS about being a part of the game either.
I mean it is. It’s an inherent risk you take while playing baseball. If it was clearly intentional, okay. But it was pretty clear it wasn’t intentional. Sometimes pitchers let it slip by accident. Even Greg Maddux led the league in hit batters once.
Probably not an accident with Maddux.
True, but all 14, and 137 hit batters in his career were intentional? Yeah no.
You say this with every hits-bat-men, it still is nonsensical.
I appreciate your passion over the issue but these things happen.
Should the batter who lined a pitch, right back at C. Sale, also be held responsible, for his broken pinky?
Slippery slopes my friend.
Was just wondering if I’d seen this before
Derrrr…..
“Pitching is the art of instilling fear.” – Sandy Koufax
“Show me a guy who can’t pitch inside and I’ll show you a loser.” – Sandy Koufax
Koufax was one of the greatest pitchers of all time. Although he intimidated batters with his inside fastballs, he only hit 18 batters in 2324.1 innings from 1955-1966.
From 1956-1966, his teammate Don Drysdale hit 132 batters in 2848.1 innings.
Both were intimidating, but Koufax had the command to pitch inside without hitting the batter. HOFer Orlando Cepeda said that Koufax’s fastball was “so fast and so noisy, it scared you,”
Drysdale was less considerate. As an S.I. article in 2007 on the most intimidating pitchers put it: “Drysdale was famous for advocating a second knockdown pitch to hitters, just so they knew the first one wasn’t a mistake.”
Far from “incurring a loss” from hitting batters, Drysdale racked up the third-most wins from 1955-1966.
As they say in the Bronx: “That’s baseball, Suzyn.”
Who’s Suzyn?
She’s Suzyn Waldman, a longtime Yankees radio announcer, paired with John Sterling, who’s been known to say that to her during broadcasts when something strange or unexpected happens on the field: “That’s baseball, Suzyn.” It’s become something of a verbal meme and it’s even on T-shirts now.