Giants’ Jung Hoo Lee Suffers Dislocated Shoulder as Injury Concerns Continue to Mount
The San Francisco Giants’ injury woes reached a new level of concern Sunday, as centre-fielder Jung Hoo Lee departed the club’s 6-5 walk-off victory in extra innings with a left shoulder ailment.
Lee was later diagnosed with a dislocated shoulder, which he suffered after smacking into the centre-field wall while attempting to catch a fly ball off Cincinnati Reds infielder Jeimer Candelario’s bat in the first inning. It went as a bases-clearing double after the ball bounced off the top of the wall and stayed in play.
The 25-year-old remained on the ground for several moments before team trainers arrived. After a brief delay, he left the field in visible pain and didn’t appear to move his left arm as he departed.
“Not great,” Giants manager Bob Melvin said of his reaction to Lee’s collision in centre. “When he hit the wall and he went down and didn’t get up, I didn’t have a great feeling about it.”
According to Melvin, Lee is scheduled to undergo an MRI on Monday to determine the full extent of his injury. He had just returned to the lineup following a brief absence caused by fouling a pitch off his left foot in Wednesday’s contest versus the Colorado Rockies.
This tough break occurred the same day the Giants placed fellow outfielder Michael Conforto on the 10-day IL due to a right hamstring strain. The club is also without four other position players, including Austin Slater (concussion), Nick Ahmed (wrist), Jorge Soler (shoulder) and Tom Murphy (knee).
San Francisco’s roster has also been decimated by injuries on the pitching front, with Blake Snell – who pitched four perfect innings in his first rehab start Sunday – currently on the IL alongside Robbie Ray (Tommy John), Alex Cobb (hip) and Tristan Beck (vascular surgery).
“We’re going through it right now,” Melvin said. “Sometimes it happens in bunches. It seems like that’s the case at this point.”
With Lee likely headed to the IL, Mike Yastrzemski will soon be the lone healthy outfielder left from the Giants’ regular starting trio. That means they’ll have to rely on depth pieces such as Heliot Ramos, Luis Matos and Tyler Fitzgerald to help fill those voids.
The Giants could promote Wade Meckler from Triple-A Sacramento, considering the 24-year-old is the only traditional outfielder on the 40-man roster not in the major leagues.
Depending on the severity of Lee’s injury, there’s a strong chance he could miss significant time, potentially even the remainder of the season. That, of course, would be a disappointing end to his inaugural campaign in North America.
It’s been somewhat of a rough start for the left-handed-hitting outfielder, who’s hit .262/.310/.331 with just two home runs and eight RBIs while posting an 89 wRC+ over his first 37 games. But he effectively minimized his swing-and-miss output, with his remarkable strikeout (8.2%) and whiff rates (9.6%) rank in the 99th and 100th percentiles, respectively.
The Japanese-born lefty spent seven seasons in the KBO – all with the Kiwoom Heroes – from 2017-23, where he was a five-time Gold Glove winner and won the league’s Most Valuable Player Award in ‘22. He recorded 1,181 hits, 65 home runs and 515 RBIs across 884 career games.
Last season, Lee slashed .318/.406/.455 while generating six home runs, 45 RBIs and a 139 wRC+ in his final campaign with Kiwoom before inking a six-year, $113-million contract with San Francisco last winter.
-Thomas Hall
Twitter: @Hall_Thomas_
Photo: Jholtgrewe. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.