It was a nerve wracking scene on Friday night as Phillies closer Jhoan Duran had to be carted off the field after taking a comebacker off the foot in his team’s game vs. Washington.
Duran, who was acquired at the MLB trade deadline to help shore up Philadelphia’s bullpen, was in visible pain in after he took a hard hit ball off his right foot. The 27 year old attempted to field the ball, but struggled to put weight on his foot before training staff hurried onto the field.
Veteran reliever David Robertson came on in relief to close out the 6-2 Phillies victory. Post game x-rays on Duran’s foot were negative, however additional testing will be done once the swelling goes down.
“He ran like a shot to retrieve the ball and then once he got there, I think the adrenaline wore off and the pain set in,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “Before the cart came out, he actually said, ‘I feel better, I think I can walk over to the dugout,’ but we got all these steps up here, so we just wanted to use the cart to take him all the way around, so we didn’t have to go up the steps.”
Duran has been exceptional since coming over via trade with the Minnesota Twins. The RHP hasn’t given up a run across 4 innings, and entered Friday’s contest with a sparkling 1.86 ERA across 53.1IP.
“I hope he’s OK; he couldn’t put too much weight on it,” Bryce Harper said. “It’s a tough place to get hit, so hopefully he’s good. It takes 20 steps to get up [to the clubhouse from] field level, so it was smart to put him on the cart.”
While it would appear as though the Phillies avoided a longterm injury, the team will nevertheless likely be without Duran for at least a few days. This puts them in an all-too-familiar spot of not having a clear cut closer to finish off games.
Robertson, Matt Strahm, Orion Kerkering and Tanner Banks have been mixed and matched throughout the season in late inning situations. And it appears as thought that group will be called upon once again to help finish off opponents for the NL East leading Phillies.
Philadelphia continues their series with Washington on Saturday with a 4:05pm ET first pitch.
Photo: Baseball Panoramic. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.