The Royals announced their Wild Card Series roster this morning, revealing within that first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino is being reinstated from the injured list. He’ll be back in the middle of the Kansas City lineup taking on Orioles ace Corbin Burnes in today’s Game 1 matchup.
It’s a rapid return for Pasquantino, who suffered a broken thumb back on Aug. 29 and was originally projected for a recovery period of six to eight weeks. He’ll instead return to the lineup in about five weeks’ time and jump right back into the fray without the benefit of a rehab assignment.
There’s some obvious risk for rust or lingering effects of that fractured digit, but the Royals are surely thrilled to have one of their best hitters cleared to take the field. The 26-year-old Pasquantino hit .262/.315/.446 (108 wRC+) this season and ranked third on the team with 19 homers and 97 runs plated. He’s the toughest strikeout among Royals regulars, too, fanning in a tiny 12.8% of his trips to the plate this season.
Pasquantino’s ahead-of-schedule return will effectively squeeze Robbie Grossman off the team’s postseason roster, at least for this round. Kansas City is going with 11 pitchers and 15 position players. Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha are lined up to start the three games, with a contingent of Kris Bubic, Lucas Erceg, Sam Long, Michael Lorenzen, Daniel Lynch IV, John Schreiber, Brady Singer and Angel Zerpa available in relief. They’ll carry eight infielders (Pasquantino, Paul DeJong, Adam Frazier, Maikel Garcia, Yuli Gurriel, Garrett Hampson, Michael Massey and Bobby Witt Jr.) in addition to five outfielders (Dairon Blanco, Kyle Isbel, MJ Melendez, Tommy Pham, Hunter Renfroe) and their two catchers (Freddy Fermin, Salvador Perez).
HUGE
I read last week that he may be activated but didn’t think there was anyway … it’s definitely HUGE for the Royals..
It’s huge if he is himself. If he’s rusty or still not 100% healed, this could end up being worse then just going with what they had.
At the very least, this feels rushed, like he’s healed enough to hold a bat, but not 100%. Hopefully for the Royals sake he’s good to go, but it seems there’s a bit of desperation in this.
Canuckleball: (best name on this site, by the way). I don’t think the Royals would activate him if he wasn’t ready. They wouldn’t risk his future like that.
I’m sure they wouldn’t risk further injury, or at least they’d be foolish to do so.
But there’s often a point after the injury (broken bone) itself has healed when there is still residual pain/discomfort. Generally, you want a player pain free before coming back, but given the time restrictions, and that he’s back well before expectations, it’s reasonable to think he might be playing through some late stage discomfort which may effect his performance.
Who knows, maybe he really is miraculously fully healed. Stranger things have happened.
Desperation to win in the playoffs? Yeah I think we’re trying to win. Good thing we swept the Orioles and Vinnie got on base three times yesterday. The sweet smell of desperation
Corbin is getting lit up today, mark my words
Nah.
LET’S GO, O’S
King Floch: I second that!
Good for him!!
This gives me world series mvp vibes, stay tuned
Looks like curtains for the Os who are in Minnehaha Twin territory. Haven’t won a playoff game in 10 yrs
There should never be a comma before “too.” Stop with this archaic nonsense.