TORONTO -- Mark this as another fortunate close call.
The Guardians were without José Ramírez from the third inning onward in Friday evening’s 5-3 loss to the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre thanks to one of the strangest sequences you’ll see this season. The good news is that Ramírez again avoided a more serious injury, coming out of the game with what the team called a minor-grade right ankle sprain.
“The reports are good,” manager Stephen Vogt said after the game. “Just being cautious -- long season. He said he could have kept going, but we can't take that chance. [We’ll] get him checked out. Good reports so far. [He’s] really sore, so we'll have to see how he feels in the morning.”
More often than not, Ramírez does keep going. There’s always something off about seeing the All-Star third baseman exit early, especially when it happens in such bizarre fashion.
Batting with two out and Steven Kwan at first base in the third inning, Ramírez darted out of the box for an infield single against Blue Jays starter Chris Bassitt, who hit Ramírez in the back with an errant throw to first. Still running at full speed, Ramírez seemed to tweak his right ankle as he stepped on the bag, plunging to the ground and staying down until Vogt and a member of the training staff came out to examine him.
Daniel Schneemann entered the game as a pinch-runner, while Ramírez was able to walk off the field on his own. That allowed the Guardians’ dugout to ease up a little.
“You definitely hold your breath,” said Kwan, who picked up three hits on the night, including a double. “Hopefully [he’s] good. I'm not sure how it is right now, but I mean, he's our leader for a reason. He plays the game 100 percent, he never takes a day off, and with that comes those risks. So it’s scary to see him come down. Hopefully it's going to be really good.”
The Rogers Centre turf may not have been the decisive factor in the call to take out Ramírez, but it’s something the Guardians were wary of even before he went down.
“He wants to play, but sometimes you have to do it,” said Vogt. “But, you know, this is Hosey. You ask him what he's feeling, he's the only one that really knows. We have a lot of trust [in him]. He knows his body, and he knows what's smart. So it's never fun to take anyone out of the game, let alone Hosey, but it was the right thing to do.”
That was as far as the Guardians could go in their evaluation of Ramírez on Friday night. The durable 32-year-old may need a few more days to tend to his ankle, but the word “minor” is imperative here. The club should know more after a re-evaluation on Saturday.
Ramírez hasn’t been on the injured list since 2019, when he suffered a broken hamate bone in late August. He still played 129 games that season, and he’s appeared in at least 152 contests each year after that -- save for the pandemic-shortened ‘20 season.
Still, you can’t be too careful with your superstar. There’s a reason why Ramírez has been able to stay healthy for this long.
It was the second time in a little over a month that Ramírez was forced to exit early due to a gritty play. He left a game against the Royals on March 29 after sustaining a right wrist sprain on an awkward slide into second base on a stolen-base attempt. He avoided structural damage and returned to the lineup two days later, when he picked up three hits and his first homer of the season.
That dependability has been a constant, even if the results have fluctuated early in the season.
Ramírez hasn’t homered since April 21, when he launched a three-run blast to open the scoring in a win over the Yankees, and he’s gone 10-for-37 with just one extra-base hit over his past 10 games, including Friday. But Ramírez is still the guy who can change a game in different ways. Thursday’s victory over the Twins was the latest example, as Ramírez scored the winning run in the 10th inning and became the first Cleveland player to reach 250 homers and 250 stolen bases in his career.
“Obviously, it sucks when a guy like that goes down,” said Logan Allen, who allowed three runs (two earned) over 5 2/3 innings on Friday. “[He’s a] big part of our team. But, you know, he’ll be back in a couple [of] days, and he'll be good to go.”