March 05, 2016
CLEARWATER, Fla. – Aaron Altherr wore a light splint on his left hand when he walked over to his locker stall on Saturday morning at Bright House Field in Clearwater.
He’s not in the lineup for today’s game in Dunedin against the Toronto Blue Jays. He’s unlikely to play tomorrow in Clearwater, either.
But there is also no X-ray scheduled for the wrist he injured while diving for a ball hit into the right field gap on Friday, either.
“Just, for now, we’re taking it day by day, I don’t think it’s anything serious,” Altherr said. “We’ll take it day by day, see what happens, check up on it tomorrow and see how it feels.”
“It’s day to day,” manager Pete Mackanin said. “One of our doctors has looked at him.”
But no X-ray?
“Not at this point, we’re not going to jump the gun,” Mackanin said. “We’re just going to go day to day and see what happens. … They didn’t say he shouldn’t get an X-ray, but we’re still in that process, the early process. We’re not going to panic or anything like that. We’re just going to go day-to-day.”
The injury occurred in the first half inning of Friday’s game, when the game’s first batter, Atlanta’s Ender Inciarte, lashed a double into right field, toward the foul line. Altherr remained in for the rest of the top of the first but then told Mackanin it was probably something that needed to be looked at sooner rather than later.
“I wasn’t too comfortable with it,” Altherr said.
And how did it feel on Saturday, after a night of rest?
“It’s still a little sore, a little achy,” he said. “But like I said, we’ll check on it tomorrow, probably give it a couple of days to rest it and see how it feels.”
This is Altherr’s second wrist injury in the last three years – he suffered a right wrist injury (which eventually needed surgery) while sliding into a base while playing in the Arizona Fall League in 2013. It hurt his development the following season when he hit just .236 with a .686 OPS and 110 strikeouts in 120 games at Double-A Reading in 2014.
But Altherr bounced back in a big way last season, earning a promotion to the big leagues in August. He’s hoping his current ailment, which he called “not even close” to similar in pain to his previous AFL injury, is just a minor roadblock to suiting up and starting in right field on Opening Day in Cincinnati.
“I don’t think it’s anything to be too concerned about,” Altherr said. “We’ll see how it feels tomorrow.”
Ryan Howard is also unlikely to play this weekend. He was sent home on Saturday with the flu-like symptoms that have been going around the clubhouse for the last week.
