PHILADELPHIA -- Griffin Conine immediately clutched his left arm and howled in pain after diving into second base, turning a brief moment of celebration in the Marlins' dugout into one of worry.
Conine left the game alongside a team trainer and was later diagnosed with a dislocated left shoulder in Saturday afternoon’s 11-10 loss to the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. A day later, the club placed Conine on the 60-day injured list, recalled infielder Ronny Simon and left-hander Cade Gibson from Triple-A Jacksonville and designated southpaw Patrick Monteverde for assignment.
Conine's first career stint on the IL will likely be a devastating blow to a young Marlins team for which the 27-year-old outfielder has been a bright spot in the early going.
“That’s kind of like a player’s worst fear: getting the game taken away and having to spend time off the field to rehab,” Conine said Sunday.
Aside from a broken hamate bone he suffered a few offseasons ago, Conine has been pretty healthy since he was drafted in 2018. He’s never been out due to injury for any sort of significant time during a season before.
Now, he’ll miss around two months -- at the minimum. Miami has Conine scheduled to undergo an MRI on Monday, which will better determine a timeline for his return.
“It’ll be a first for me,” Conine said. “I’m just going to learn how to deal with that, how to realign and focus on just getting back on the field. That’s all I can do.”
The play on which Conine was injured was his team-leading seventh double of the season. He also leads all qualified Marlins hitters in both slugging percentage (.438) and OPS (.790).
With the Marlins trailing 9-1 in the sixth, Conine scorched a liner to center field that left his bat at 112.1 mph -- the hardest-hit ball by either team in a game that featured 21 runs. The ball was hit so hard that it led to a close play at second base, with Conine diving toward the bag and coming up in significant pain after appearing to jam his left arm upon making contact with the ground.
“It’s unfortunate that that happened, because that’s what this guy does -- he only knows one way to play,” manager Clayton McCullough said. “Unfortunate there, he’s going in for the hustle double, and he just kind of hit the ground a little awkwardly.”
Though the Marlins trailed by eight at the time, Conine’s RBI double helped spark a three-run inning en route to a furious comeback attempt that ultimately fell one run short.
Meanwhile, on the defensive side, Conine entered Saturday as the only player across the Majors this season with multiple five-star catches (plays made on balls with a 0-25% catch probability, per Statcast).
“The play has been superb on both sides of the ball,” McCullough said. "You know what you’re going to get from him every single day. He brings a lot of intangibles on top of the fact that he’s played excellent defense in left, and offensively, he’s been a real force for us.”
Making matters even worse for Miami, Conine's injury comes just one day after center fielder Derek Hill was placed on the injured list with a left wrist sprain.
Jesús Sánchez started in center for a second straight day on Saturday, but shifted to right field after Dane Myers entered the game as a pinch-hitter and stayed in to play center. Utility man Javier Sanoja took over in left field following Conine's departure.