On Sunday morning the Indians announced that third baseman José Ramírez had fractured his right hamate bone. He was placed in the Injured List and scheduled for surgery. He underwent surgery yesterday and today the Indians announced that they expect him to miss 5-7 weeks.
That timeline puts an end to Ramírez’s regular season, which ends on September 29. There’s at least some chance he could be available if the Indians qualify for the playoffs, but it’s by no means certain he could contribute. The seven-week end of that timeline wouldn’t have him back in action until midway through the American League Championship Series.
Ramírez started the season slowly, but in the past two months he had turned it on to help fuel Cleveland’s surge. He hit .320/.340/.680 with nine homers and 25 driven in in July and was hitting .321/.372/.705 with six homers and 20 driven this month. Basically, he’s been a better version of the Ramírez who won the Silver Slugger Award and came in third in the MVP balloting in 2018.
That’s now all gone for the stretch run and only theoretically available for October.
