It's only the first week of spring training and three teams - the San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers and Atlanta Braves - have had some of their top players suffer injuries that are bound to affect their roster moving forward.
The Giants lost outfielder Hunter Pence for 6-8 weeks on Thursday after the slugger was hit by a pitch in the left forearm. According to Alex Pavlovic of CSNBayArea.com, the 31-year-old suffered a non-displaced fracture in the forearm, just above the wrist, and he's expected to miss the first month of the season. The facture was specifically of the ulna, which is one of two bones that make up the forearm.
For the time being, some sort of platoon consisting of Gregor Blanco, Justin Maxwell, Travis Ishikawa and Juan Perez will take over in left field. Pence was an All-Star in 2014 after playing in all 162 games and batting .277/.332/.445 with 106 runs scored, 20 home runs and 74 RBIs en route to the Giants' World Series victory.
Also in the Cactus League, the Texas Rangers could be dealing with an injury to one of their stars. Yu Darvish, who was shut down for the 2014 season after 22 starts because of inflammation in his throwing elbow, was pulled from his start against the Royals on Thursday because of tightness in his right triceps muscle, according to MLB.com.
He reportedly felt the tightness when he was warming up in the bullpen before taking the mound, but his triceps never loosened and he was forced to exit the game. The injury isn't considered serious, but it could potentially be a lingering issue that delays Darvish's progression in his return from elbow inflammation. He will be examined by Dr. Keith Meister on Friday.
But even worse, the Atlanta Braves will have one of their top starters visit Dr. James Andrews to get his shoulder checked out, according to Mark Bowman of MLB.com. Mike Minor was scratched from his start on Wednesday with shoulder soreness, which is not good news because he missed significant time in 2014 because of such problems and his performance suffered greatly.
The 27-year-old was projected to be the Braves' No. 4 starter behind Julio Teheran, Alex Wood and Shelby Miller, but it's now believed he may start the season on the disabled list. Atlanta was likely hoping he would return to the 2013 Mike Minor, who finished 13-9 with a 3.21 ERA, 1.09 WHIP and 191 strikeouts in 32 starts (204 2/3 innings).
We'll be keeping a close on eye on other significant injuries that occur in spring training.
