August 29: Millas underwent season-ending surgery on his left index finger, interim manager Miguel Cairo tells reporters (including Bobby Blanco of MASNsports.com). He’s expected to be ready for Spring Training.
August 27: The Nationals announced today that catcher Drew Millas has been diagnosed with a fracture and dislocation of his left second finger. He had been removed from today’s game after Austin Wells made contact with his hand on a swing.
At this point, it’s unclear how much time Millas is expected to miss, but a stint on the injured list feels assured. That will inevitably lead to a roster move of some kind. Millas and Riley Adams are the only two healthy catchers on the 40-man roster right now.
Keibert Ruiz is currently on the concussion IL. His last game was July 5th and he still hasn’t begun a rehab assignment. Just over a week ago, Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com provided an update on Ruiz. He had begun doing some first base drills, not for a positional switch, but just to get him on the field and tracking baseballs without putting him at any real risk of exacerbating his situation.
The Ruiz injury opened up playing time for Millas and he had been making the most of it. He has a .313/.365/.458 slash line in 54 plate appearances this year. He likely wasn’t going to hit at that level forever but it’s nonetheless frustrating for him to have this injury get in the way of his progress.
The Nats are off on Thursday but will need to provide Adams with a backup by Friday. Their non-roster options aren’t terribly inspiring. Francisco Mejia in in Triple-A and has major league experience but he’s hitting .178/.222/.287 this year. CJ Stubbs and Brady Lindsly are also non-roster options but they have no major league experience and are also having poor seasons. Stubbs has a .148/.279/.240 line this year and Lindsly’s is .137/.267/.216.
Perhaps the Nats could look to find a catcher outside the organization. The trade deadline has passed but deals can still happen under certain conditions, such as for players on minor league deals that have not been selected to the majors this year. The Nationals could therefore try to trade for someone like Jakson Reetz of the Orioles, Payton Henry of the Phillies or Brian Serven of the Tigers.
It’s also possible that some catchers end up on waivers this week. Late August is a popular time for waiver activity. That’s due to the fact that a player claimed in September is not postseason eligible with his new club. For clubs falling out of contention who would like to save some money, this time of the year is the best to put a guy on the wire and hope another club grabs his contract. Though for the Nats, they may not want to spend thousands of dollars for a Band-Aid in a lost season.
Photo courtesy of Rafael Suanes, Imagn Images
Cool. A guy I hadn’t heard of that doesn’t play for the Marlins.
Adams had to move from DH to C so the Nationals lost the DH early and ended up having the pitcher attempt to hit. They were down 11-0 at the time and were being no-hit by Max Fried up to that point, so not a lot of game implication there.
Another victim of the pitch-framing fetish. At least it wasn’t a broken arm like Contreras. Looking forward to full-time auto ball-strike.
Fetish?
Damn shame. Guy finally gets his chance and is making the most of it then this happens. Hope he recovers quickly.
August 27 = a fracture and dislocation of his left second finger.
August 29 = underwent season-ending surgery on his left index finger.
SO
Which is it??
Just how inept is the Nationals Medical Staff that they can’t diagnose an injury to the correct finger??
Important !!
Can he still FLIP THE BIRD to inept drivers??
The left second finger and left index finger are the same finger. They are both next to the thumb. It can be called both. Don’t worry. He wasn’t operated on a perfectly functional finger. There’s this search engine called Google which you don’t seem to be aware of. The flipping is for the middle finger.