LOS ANGELES – A sputtering offense badly needs its thumper, more now than ever on this White Sox west coast road trip against the Dodgers and Mariners, and at a time when they must carve into their unsightly won-lost record.
But Eloy Jimenez, after missing the weekend series against the Marlins in which the Sox scored eight runs and lost two of three, missed his fourth straight game Tuesday.
Manager Pedro Grifol said Jimenez tested his lower right leg on Monday’s off day and Tuesday pregame and was available off the bench Tuesday at Dodgers Stadium and would probably be back in the lineup Wednesday.
And when Jimenez gets cleared to play? How much longer will it be before he goes down again? It’s a salty but fair question for the right fielder and designated hitter who is batting .257/.315/.435 with six homers and a .749 OPS in 35 games.
Jimenez’ absences have become problematic on many levels for the Sox.
“When he’s playing every day, he’s one of the best hitters in the game,” Grifol said.
When healthy, Jimenez is a skilled hitter, much more than a free swinger, with 40-home run potential. But potential is still somewhat untapped because of the 26-year-old’s all-too-regular stints on the injured list.
Jimenez’ latest injury is his 16th known since April of 2019, his first with the Sox who acquired him with Dylan Cease from the Cubs for Jose Quintana two years earlier.
With a record like that, it’s difficult for the Sox to project his value knowing he hasn’t been able to stay on the field. Signed to a six-year, $43 million deal in March, 2019, Jimenez’ contract and health history affect his trade value as well.
To Jimenez’ credit, he came to spring training 25-30 pounds lighter with designs on staying healthy and being as mobile as possible for a fight to establish himself as a usable right fielder. The signing of left fielder Andrew Benintendi to a club record $75 million deal moved Jimenez from the spot where he tore a pectoral muscle two spring trainings ago, but right field was held as a carrot for him to avoid designated hitter duty, which he abhors.
When rookie right fielder Oscar Colas was demoted to Triple-A Charlotte on May 2, a door opened for Jimenez to escape from DH duty. As awful happenstance would have it, an appendicitis attack May 5 sent him to a Cincinnati hospital for surgery and knocked him out of action until May 28.
An eight-game hitting streak was put on hold, and when he returned, Jimenez hit safely in eight of his next 10 games. He was playing right field without incident.
And then he got hurt.
Again.
“Everybody is different and some players have a higher chance of injuring themselves when other players seem to be lucky and more durable,” said Brian Schulz, orthopedic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles and team physician for the Los Angeles Angels.
“In today’s game we see more players get these soft tissue injuries because they’re stronger. And the demand and workload is so much higher than it used to be. The forces they’re putting through these muscles is something that didn’t happen 30, 40 years ago.”
The Sox need Jimenez’ muscles on the field. The closest he has come to the 31 homers he hit his rookie season in 2019 was 16 last season when he played 84 games. His other games-played totals: 55 (in abbreviated 60-game 2020 season), 55 and 35.
There’s no underestimating his value to the lineup.
“Big bat in the middle of the order,” Griofol said. “Obviously he really lengthens it out.”