Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Alex Gordon To Begin Rehab Assignment

Alex Gordon, the erstwhile once-franchise-player-to-be has had his career largely derailed by injuries. Last season it was hip-surgery that kept him from ever really being 100%. This spring, he broke his thumb after sliding headfirst into second. Never fun from what I hear.

In my experience thumb injuries, or rather, hand injuries in general, aren't the sorts of things that go away quickly. Instead they tend to linger and have pronounced negative effects with hitters. Gordon will be rehabbing with the Blue Rocks, one of the Royals A-Ball affiliates, beginning Thursday. While Gordon will be eligible to come off the DL on Saturday, it doesn't sound like that'll be the case. There are plenty of good reasons for that, but mostly because few players can simply go from not playing baseball to playing Major League Baseball, and secondly because his hand will need more time to heal and get it's strength back.

What remains to be seen is how Gordon's return will effect the infield rotation of the Royals. I actually kind of like their potential infield when healthy, the problem is that I'm not the manager of the Royals and the guy who is, Trey Hillman, doesn't seem to have the same faith in certain players that I do. But can you really tell me that an infield of Billy Butler at first, Alberto Callaspo at second, Mike Aviles at short, and Gordon at third would really be much worse than any of their AL Central counter-parts? It's not the strongest defensive group - though I really like Aviles at short. But what it loses in defense, it makes up for in offense.

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