Updates from Saturday, April 26
MASN’s Roch Kubatko has some bad news for Orioles fans:
Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun noted Davis was hopeful he could avoid the disabled list:
Original Text
A disappointing start for Baltimore Orioles first baseman Chris Davis—at least by his lofty standards—may have just gotten even worse.
The slugger was forced from Friday night’s game against the Kansas City Royals in the fifth inning, and according to MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko, he has been diagnosed with a left oblique strain:
The severity of the injury is still unknown, but as Kubatko noted, there isn’t a lot of optimism:
However, MLB.com’s Brittany Ghiroli added Davis’ thoughts after the game:
Through the first 21 games of the season, Davis has been in the midst of a bit of a power outage. After clocking a league-high 53 home runs and slugging .634 en route to a third-place finish in MVP voting last year, he has just two homers in 2014 to go with a pedestrian .392 slugging percentage and .772 OPS.
As the 28-year-old told The Baltimore Sun‘s Eduardo A. Encina, though, he has been making a conscious effort to be more patient at the plate:
“I turned over a new leaf this year. I’m trying not to hit any more home runs this year and just walk. Try to swing as few times as possible, take it easy on my body, try to get as many years out of it as possible.”
Unfortunately, it doesn’t get much more ironic than that, as Davis, who played in 160 games last year, is now sidelined.
Stephen Lombardozzi replaced Davis on Friday, taking over second base while Ryan Flaherty moved to first base and Jonathan Schoop took over third.
The O’s have been getting lots of production elsewhere. Nelson Cruz, Matt Wieters, Adam Jones and even the 22-year-old Schoop have gotten off to fast starts, and the team entered Friday at 11-10.
Still, the O’s won’t want to be without Davis’ bat in the middle of the lineup for long.
Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com