TODAY: X-rays were negative on Rodriguez’s ankle, and he told Daniel Kramer and other reporters that he was already feeling good enough that there “a high chance that I should be in the lineup” as early as today. It seems like the Mariners will still hold Rodriguez out for precautionary reasons at least, yet it appears as though the outfielder has dodged a major injury bullet.
“In the beginning, it was very painful, and I couldn’t really feel my foot a whole lot or move it a whole lot — and not even like walk properly,” Rodriguez said. “But after we kind of started treating it, everything started reacting better right away.”
JUNE 7: The Mariners suffered a potentially devastating blow this evening when center fielder Julio Rodriguez was helped off the field by members of the team’s athletic staff due to an apparent injury. The injury occurred (as relayed by Daniel Kramer of MLB.com) when a hard-hit line drive off the bat of Randy Arozarena collided with Rodriguez’s leg while he was attempting to steal third base. Rodriguez was replaced in center field by Leody Taveras.
It’s not yet clear how severe Rodriguez’s injury is, but even a brief absence would be a tough break for a Mariners club that has already lost ten of their last 14 games, including an active four-game losing streak. That slide has seen Seattle drop from in the driver’s seat in the AL West to three games back of the Astros and one game out of an AL Wild Card spot. That slide can’t be attributed to Rodriguez, who has started to shed his reputation as a slow starter this season by slashing a respectable .248/.316/.416 (114 wRC+) with even stronger peripheral numbers across his first 61 games this season. Rodriguez has ten steals, ten homers, and is striking out at a career-low 19.6% clip to this point in the season all while playing his typical excellent defense in center field.
For now, there’s little for Mariners fans to do other than wait for updates from club brass. Rodriguez appears likely to undergo testing before a timetable for his return will become available. Perhaps he’s suffered only a contusion and will be day-to-day or require only a short stint on the IL. On the other hand, a bone bruise on Rodriguez’s leg would likely require at least a month, as it has for fellow outfielders like Mike Trout and Cody Bellinger in recent years, although it’s at least possible it could take significantly longer as has been the case for players like Kyle Tucker and Anthony Rendon.
That dynamic of a talent would be difficult to lose for any club, but that’s especially true of the Mariners given their current situation in the outfield. With Victor Robles and Luke Raley both already on the injured list, infielders from the club’s bench mix like Miles Mastrobuoni and Dylan Moore have been tasked with helping out on the grass alongside the club’s regular trio of Rodriguez, Arozarena, and Taveras. If Rodriguez were to require a stint on the injured list, Taveras would likely slide over from right field to center while depth option currently at Triple-A like Dominic Canzone or Rhylan Thomas took over in right field.
Canzone is a career .206/.263/.387 hitter in the majors and Thomas has just three games in the majors under his belt, so it goes without saying that either would be a subpar replacement for the Mariners’ star hitter. The good news is that further help may be on the way soon: MLB.com suggests that Raley could begin a rehab assignment as soon as next week. A .242/.328/.463 (127 wRC+) hitter since the start of the 2023 campaign, Raley’s return could help to make up for any time Rodriguez misses, at least against right-handed pitching.
Wrong JRod is linked.. thanks
That’s been happening a bit.
I’m pretty sure these writers are supposed to double check their work. Who knows anymore. The New Normal is weird.
That’s the work of b-ref’s player linker.
Editor should check. Most publications use fact checkers – often entry level.
Lazy journalism
@dugnet And being critical of MLBTR writers should b reserved for paying customers.
You think MLBTR has editors? I’ve worked for a lot of online publications. NBC didn’t edit my work or fact check. FanGraphs only edits the main site. Yahoo would run my unedited NBC columns as their own.
Well then that’s just being sloppy. I deal with public facing information on a regular basis and would be fired if I showed the same indifference about making mistakes then blaming it on the “code”.
I would guess that’s either reflected in the subject matter or your pay scale.
If Luis Garcia links to the wrong Luis, well, there’s absolutely nothing at stake.
It’s neither. It’s the loss of trust in the information we are provided if the data we are claiming to be the supporting information is consistently incorrect.
The only thing at stake the writer/editor/sites reputation for providing good info. You guys seem to be okay with taking the hit so I’ll hold my opinion on this going forward.
A link going slightly askew is a far cry from sharing inaccurate data or unsourced rumors. MLBTR has good processes in place to oversee those areas. That actually merits calling out when wrong.
Ultimately, the audience tells the content provider what is acceptable. I jumped in to share my perspective having spent time on both sides of the fence. If an auto-linker is 99.9% effective, I personally can’t be bothered to care about the 0.1% that makes me search manually. If enough people feel otherwise, they’ll make a change to their processes.
@fansince Do you see the irony in those that typically complain on here of these minor details are almost always the ones who dont pay??
I dont pay on here either, so Im not going to nitpick such details. You won’t to toss around trust, reputation, etc… Yet you dont put your money where your mouth is.
No two players should be allowed to have the same name.
Same thing happened on a poll about Jeremy Peña and the wrong Jeremy Peña was linked. Seems to be the New Normal.
BRef has had these issues for for probably a decade if not more now.
What’s that have to do with the author/editor reviewing links to ensure they are correct?
Because this has been an issue with BRef for over a decade, this question has been raised and answered so many times on this site. Honestly, I’ve forgotten the reason as it really doesn’t matter. And here’s why. If it was fixable and in the control of MLBTR, do you not think that at some point, within the decade they’ve been aware of the problem, that they would fix it? Logic suggests, “yes.”
Therefore, we can come to understand that sometimes things are just out of our control and we can go back to enjoying our Sundays.
What it comes down to is you can follow the link, see it’s the wrong player, and use the search bar to navigate to the right one. So long as the player links go anywhere on BRef, they’ve done enough.
the “New Normal” okay grandpa
All I see is a bunch of non-paying Karens doing their whiny thing from the everlasting comfort of mom’s basement couch.
That’s the new normal.
Everyone who has ever run a business knows all about the advice guys.
Stop looking in the mirror.
“Helped off the field with apparent injury.” Well, duh. It’s a bit beyond “apparent” at that point.
Not necessarily apparent with all pro athletes. Lebron has been known to be all but taken in a medivac helicopter for simply having cramps.
Remember Paul Pierce in the wheelchair?!
Good point. I remember Kenny Lofton needing a crash cart every time he got hurt
It was apparent he had an injury tho. Maybe you were heading in the right direction.
I was just taking a shot at Lebron
Yeah. Idk if you were responding to me. I wasn’t talking about your post. Just occured to me tho that apparent, oddly, could be used to mean what he intended but that’s not how he said it.
He was injured, allegedly.
Oh no, there goes Tokio
Where’s Godzilla?
Hedeki Matsui, he retired
baseball-reference.com/players/m/matsuhi01.shtml
Hideki Matsui retired in 2012 and probably is living a very comfortable life, no need to keep battling Mothra and others.
This has already been a bottom third offense since May 1, even while Cal hits home runs like he’s Aaron Judge. They need Raley AND Julio to start to climb out of this hole.
The last thing the Mariners need at this point is losing Julio for a while.
How about Raleigh?
Yeah, that would be worse.
Okay, second-to-last thing. Actually, maybe third-to-last. A giant meteor hitting Seattle during a Mariners home game would be worse.
Fme…
“Apparent injury” ?? He was hit on the leg and limped off the ground so it was definitely an injury.
Probably an injury, hopefully not a long term injury, could be a boo-boo. He’ll get wrapped in an ace bandage and sent back out there.
More examples of how pathetic journalism has become. They can’t fix simple grammar yet are so afraid of being wrong they use passive language like “alleged” when it’s pretty clear what happened.
.248/.316 is respectable and not a slow start? He’s supposed to be their star player.
Its in comparison to the rest of the league, and with the new stats, average is undervalued, so yeah, mediocre is now celebrated.
And to throw even more cold water on the state of hitting, there are currently only 3 active players with a career BA over .300
The league average has hovered in the .240s for a few years now. So his average is about average.
He did have a slow start. He is just getting hot sooner than normal. Usually at the end of June he starts he has been pretty good for a couple weeks now.
Not sure if the ankle is better or worse. I thought it got him in the shin. It would have given him the deaf leg so he would have limped the same either way. Hope it is only a day or two. We don’t need Taveras in CF. I was hoping he would have a rejuvenation here like Robles. Nope he takes awful paths to the ball. When he gets to the warning track I swear he closes his eyes and jumps. One ball I bet he was 4-5’ away from it. When I was 13 I took better paths to the ball.
This team is in free fall. Cant even beat bad teams. Cant win at home or on the road. Cant hit and also cant pitch. I don’t think they’ll be aggressive at the deadline, either.
As former Rangers GM Tom House once said, “We can’t win at home, and we can’t win on the road. So it’s my job as the GM to figure out where else we can play.”
Tom House, catcher of Hank’s 715th home run out in the Braves bullpen!
I have an issue with the attempt of “colorful” writing with the way it’s written It is shaped that JRod actually collided with Randy- not the ball “colliding” with the player. Never saw it written that way before.
There was a generic collision of sorts between Rodriguez and what appeared to be a ball off the bat of Arozarena that resulted in Rodriguez being assisted from the playing field, but none of this is confirmed. Writer trying to remember if this actually happened or was simply a dream. Fans may or may not have reason for concern.
Yeah, “struck” or “hit” his leg would have worked better.
You have to wonder if he is out for the year do they finally do a blockbuster for Duran with the Red Sox.
X-rays came back negative for JRod’s ankle and he responded well to treatment. It’s day-to-day.
seattletimes.com/sports/mariners/mariners-julio-ro…
Rodriguez has a career 229 wRC+, so a 114 (now 116) mark through over 1/3 of this season is doing nothing to “shed his reputation as a slow starter.” It’s actually continuing to reinforce it.
129, not 229…
J Rod’s production this year would not make losing him for any sort of time a “devastating blow.” Losing the player we hope he will be? Yes.