Kansas City Royals: Jorge Soler injury yet another rough patch in 2018
The 2018 season has been bleak for the Kansas City Royals, but things got worse on Friday night when Jorge Soler was injured. He could miss quite a bit of time.
There wasn’t a lot of hope for the Kansas City Royals to contend in 2018, but I’m not sure any of us expected the team to be THIS bad. Things took yet another turn for the worst, however, as outfielder Jorge Soler was injured on Friday night.
Soler was running out of the box in the sixth inning and tripped awkwardly. He then limped to the dugout and it certainly didn’t look good. Sure enough, Soler was pulled from the rest of the game with Whit Merrifield taking over in the outfield and Ryan Goins playing at second base.
We found out not long after Soler was taken out of the game that he fractured his left first metatarsal. I’m not a doctor, but it doesn’t sound good for Soler and he is expected to miss a good chunk of time.
Jorge Soler has a fracture of the left first metatarsal. Don't ever say it can't get worse. #Royals
— Josh Vernier (@JoshVernier610) June 16, 2018
The severity of Soler's fracture is unknown. But Jayson Werth suffered a similar injury for Washington in early June last year and missed most of July and August. Werth, in fact, also fouled a pitch off his big toe in Oakland.
— Rustin Dodd (@rustindodd) June 16, 2018
So, where does this put the Royals now? Well, for one, it’s doubtful that we see Jorge Soler for a few months. While I wouldn’t be shocked if he was shut down for the rest of the year, Rustin Dodd’s tweet above indicates that he could return later in the season.
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Soler has struggled with staying healthy throughout his career, which is likely why the Chicago Cubs were okay with flipping him in a trade. We’ve seen that he can hit now (which wasn’t the case last year) and he hadn’t been injured in 2018 to this point.
Soler had a great stretch a month or so ago, but he had come back down to earth recently. He was slashing .268/.358/.473 with nine home runs and 28 RBI in his 220 at bats. Despite looking awful defensively at times earlier this season, Soler looked better in right field and I actually had just published a piece on Friday about what the Royals were going to do when Jorge Bonifacio got reinstated.
With Soler now likely out for awhile, Bonifacio will probably be slotted back into his old role of right field and then the Royals will be in a similar situation from last year. Soler was injured in 2017, Bonifacio came up from Triple-A, wowed the organization, and that led to Soler not having a place on the team.
While things are different now with Soler actually hitting and able to play better defense, the injury bug is something to keep in mind with the former Cub. He’s been injured frequently in his career and he’s only 26 years old. Not exactly promising moving forward.
The Kansas City Royals aren’t going anywhere this year, but having one of their best hitters go down with an unfortunate injury still sucks big time. If nothing else, Soler was improving and this could set him back. Hopefully it won’t set him back to as bad as he was a year ago, but you never want to see one of your up and coming players get injured.
This is just another raw deal for the Kansas City Royals in a season we’re ready to move on from and it’s only freaking June. Why Baseball Gods? Why?!