Seiya Suzuki finger injury ‘going to take a while'

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NEW YORK — A finger injury that looked like a relatively short-term issue originally Seiya Suzuki might force a new plan for getting the Cubs’ top free agent acquisition of the winter back on the field.

“It’s just going really slowly,” Cubs manager David Ross said Saturday before the Cubs played the Yankees. “He wants to be back in there bad. But the finger doesn’t look great. It’s really stayed almost status quo.”

Cubs president Jed Hoyer is on the trip and said that he planned to meet with Suzuki and the medical staff to determine what to try next. As recently as Wednesday, Ross suggested Suzuki might be return from the injured list this weekend in New York.

Hoyer and Ross said team doctors say surgery isn’t necessary. But rest could be the next best option for a player who has been trying to hit and practice daily over the past week or so.

“Part of the challenge we’re dealing with is he really wants to play,” Hoyer said. “Our sense is to try to be prudent about it. We’re fighting a competitive guy.”

Suzuki, a former batting champ and Gold Glove winner in Japan, signed a five-year, $85 million free agent deal in March and then won the National League Rookie of the Month award in April.

He was hurt May 26 in Cincinnati, jamming his left ring finger making awkward slide into second base trying to elude a tag.

Between pregame work sessions Saturday, Suzuki was asked how the finger was doing and rocked both hands as if to say, “so-so.”

“It’s going to take a while, and candidly I’m OK with that,” said Hoyer, who called it the nagging nature of injuries to the hands and wrists. “This year is really important for him to assimilate and face big-league pitching and figure out what he needs to do going forward in his career. And coming back and having this nagging injury and not be able to do it well doesn’t make a lot of sense.

“He needs to come back when he can really compete at this level, and it’s hard to do that when your finger is swelling up all the time.”

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