Garciaparra Leaves With Groin Injury
Submitted by cubsnet on Wed, 2005-04-20 20:33.
Nomar Garciaparra left tonight's game against St. Louis in the 3rd inning "after injuring his left groin," reports MLB.com. He was carried off the field. "The severity of the injury was unclear, a Cubs official said. Garciaparra is expected to undergo an MRI on Thursday."
One of the strengths the Cubs had coming into this season was the offense it could expect from the up-the-middle positions (c, ss, 2b, and cf). Todd Walker is already out with an injury. A second of the four may now be down. And just as Neifi Perez is starting to show that he's not really a .400 hitter.
UPDATE: The Chicago Tribune reports that Garciaparra "will be placed on the 15-day disabled list and could be out a month or more."
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Garciaparra's roster spot
So who takes Garciaparra's roster spot? This is certainly an interesting choice. Ben Grieve or David Kelton at Iowa would be the best call-ups (although there's no real backup shortstop). But neither of them are on the 40-man roster, and my guess is that Jim Hendry won't want to put them on there just to have to subject someone to waivers whenever Scott Williamson returns later in the year. If the Cubs want a backup shortstop, Ronny Cedeno is the guy. He hasn't historically been much of a hitter, but he is hitting well at Iowa right now.
Minor Chance
I'd like to see Cedeno come up too. He had a good spring training, is hitting OK now, and would be a much better answer to SS than Macias or Hairston (supposedly Hairston has not played SS at the MLB level). Unfortunately, Cedeno would rust on the bench, as Dusty would not put a rookie on the field like that unless a gun was pointed to his head.
I have to wonder about the general feeling in the Cubs minor league operations as opposed to other teams. Do Cubs minor leaguers feel like they're stuck where they're at more so than the guys they play against?
If they did call up Cedeno, and IF he got some decent playing time, what a great signal that would be for the rest of the minor league players: keep hustling and you have a chance to get a locker in Wrigley. Besides developing players, the AAA minor league team should be the "disaster insurance" policy. Seems like there was a disaster last night.
Cedeno it is.
Cedeno it is.