00:01all right i haven't looked but i'm imagining when you say bad news that this is going to be
00:07nd rodriguez am i right no no it is not nd rodriguez what happened think is it o'neill
00:12cruz no think worse paul skein no think i'll think worse it couldn't be worse well
00:21who's your face of the franchise oh no connor griffin jeff passan pirates rookie shortstop
00:29connor griffin as a torn tendon in his left ring finger sources tell espn while griffin could play
00:36through it rehab is the likeliest option and would keep him out at least a month this sucks you know
00:44that yeah no you know what so griffin could play through it and i'm guessing that this probably
00:53occurred over the weekend on those two diving plays that he made and you saw him uh kind of
00:59getting up a little bit and gripping at his finger on his left hand inside the glove because he fell
01:05awkwardly on it when he made those two diving catches this against the nats this is a true
01:11bummer and now rehab is the likeliest option and will keep him out at least a month i'll tell you
01:17i'll
01:18tell you man the only the only silver lining here limits for me is that i thought you were going
01:25to
01:25say he aggravated the previous injury and then i'd start thinking that that was like something that
01:31was going to just plague him forever do you know what i mean no i i thought you were going
01:35to say
01:35that this obviously a ucl type of injury yeah obviously this is bad uh we saw what this dude can
01:43do every every day he's doing something stealing home making diving catches you know getting on base
01:52any way he can and then stealing a bag and then scoring when other guys wouldn't score on you know
01:57a hard single or something it's just what a bummer what an unbelievable bummer why does this always
02:05happen to them why would pass and include he could play through it but rehab is the likeliest option
02:10like are they leaving that window open that i don't know but now whoever we have over there today
02:15that's going to be big news what time is their clubhouse open i think right around 230 well it's
02:21a 640 game might be earlier than that all right so oh god i think it's tree triolo at shortstop
02:28i think
02:29it's more tree back to triolo at short he's actually well i think he's been hitting better hasn't he well
02:34yeah better than 150 no he's actually been respectable has he's hitting in the 260 range right now i believe
02:41over his last seven games and what are their other options to hear are we going to get end
02:45as well yeah callahan's actually been pretty good i like him triolo over his last seven 250 average a
02:51home run four rbis over his last 15 games hitting 267 with a 340 on base but still like there's
03:01no
03:01excusing not having conor griffin you know how the importance of him there's no sugarcoating yeah
03:07there's not defensively and offensively yeah and when he got up that a little bit gimpy i guess
03:13with that finger and he was shaking it out and they were looking at it in the
03:16you can't be you can't be gimpy with a finger okay whatever it just you could tell that there's
03:22something to be there was something irritating him i know i know now another that's the way it's
03:28going to shake out though is it's going to be gonzalez lau and and triolo and triolo that that's just
03:35what's going to happen with a little bit of callahan mixed in somewhere there right another
03:38i mean at different positions right yeah yeah it's gonna have to be maybe you play gonzalez a
03:45couple of times there here's the other silver lining is you have an all-star break yes that's
03:49what i was just about to say and you have an offense that's absolutely raking just raking no matter
03:55who's in or out are we ever going to get a healthy pirate offense with griffin cruz and horwitz back
04:01in
04:01it not until august apparently and if they can even get to that point my honest thought as i
04:07think head to this is obviously they need they need connor griffin but i do think this is survivable
04:13with this offense and with the way they're hitting no matter who's in there it just it just stinks
04:20this is like this is like if sydney crosby left in the middle of his rookie season a couple times
04:25with injuries it just i want to watch the guy every day but i do think this is survivable
04:31i'm really relieved because when you told me it was griffin my first thought was this thing flared
04:38up again this is going to be chronic this is going to require surgery you know what i mean so
04:44i'll be
04:44honest with you when you said what it was it was a little bit of a relief and then when
04:52pass and said
04:52he might be able to play through it i mean we'll see is that smart no idea i'm sure they'll
04:57talk to
04:57tom sick today uh the medical guy and we'll get a better report on that but but all things considered
05:05while this absolutely stinks there are some silver linings to it it's also on his non-throwing hand
05:12too so you're talking about the impact of just ground balls ball in the glove line drive in the glove
05:18that's the thing that's probably the main concern here because if it was his throwing hand more of
05:24a concern how can he grip the baseball and every time that he does how much of a problem is
05:28that
05:29you know is how much is it impacting your throwing in terms of batting that's well it's also you know
05:37his bottom hand on the bat and that's a finger that you use pretty significantly to to grip the bat
05:43and try to follow through on i'm sure taking swings and the fact that we found that out today
05:50yeah and not yesterday total bummer makes me think that they probably went through a workout today at
05:56pnc park in the cages and it flared up on him a little bit and he couldn't swing the bat
06:02the way
06:03he's used to i just love watching the guy play every day i mean it's one of the reasons i
06:08look forward
06:09to watching the pirates maybe the biggest to be real honest with you because i feel like anything
06:13can happen at any time whether it's hitting base running or defense with that dude i saw i think it
06:19was mark de rosa uh that said on mlb network yesterday i can't wait to see where his career
06:25goes he's going to be a face of the game yeah that's the potential he has true five tool guy
06:31just
06:31look at his number since he turned 20 he's a critical piece to this team this year having said that
06:37i think
06:37this is survivable with the way that their offense is just cranking it out and hopefully gets cruise
06:44and horowitz back soon and what really sucks is that just got him back i know he just came back
06:50from being out for a month may 30th was the last game he played until june 26th now he's only
06:57played
06:58eight games joe i know eight games and now he's gonna miss time i don't think he hit great in
07:04those
07:04games but he did enough to constantly help them give me some of his numbers from those eight games
07:08give me runs give me steals and we saw the defense i mean the two plays he made in the
07:15same game were
07:16phenomenal well he's he's had a hit in seven out of the eight games he has had at least he's
07:22had two
07:23hits in four of the eight games he's hitting 333 in july so far through four games and he hit
07:29278 in
07:31june in that limited sample size okay he's hitting 300 then he's hitting even better than i thought
07:35this month with a home run and three rbis and he's also scored five runs maybe i'm just paying attention
07:42to the homers because he's on my home run team which is getting destroyed he's also stolen six
07:47bases over the last eight games it's unbelievable he is a huge threat for them at the top of their
07:51lineup they finally put him in the leadoff spot where you and bob wanted him to be yeah and the
07:57fact
07:57that they're going to miss him for there's a real chance he's not back until the middle of august
08:01he's not going to be back until after the trade deadline if it is at least a month if you
08:05want
08:05to take the verbiage literally yeah from passing yes you hope it heals quicker and what are these
08:11weird little finger injuries how can it sucks that this happens to him and and cruz i don't know if
08:17you
08:17you know recall the play i'm talking about it happened twice in the same game he's diving to try to
08:22save runs yeah in the shallow left center yeah and he just falls with the glove which is a very
08:29dangerous play but i give him all the credit for trying to to make it and he did i'm looking
08:33at it
08:33right now and he just i'm looking at it right now finger into the ground in the glove you would
08:39think
08:39would give him some cushion but i don't know that's not well huge loss it is and it's also survivable
08:48i believe for this team i do especially if they get two bats back but when they come back though
08:53like they're supposed to come back after the break how long after the break is it even without those
08:58two and griffin they're still smashing the ball around the park right but how much can one lineup
09:03be able to sustain though i think they can sustain i do that also means that esmeralyn valdez still
09:09needs to be able to hit over everybody's expectation he was a big key to well yeah he was a
09:14big key
09:14you know who else was a big key was endy so now you do have me worried because he's my
09:19now he's
09:20my primary concern after this news um when the when that place opens at 230 today i'm gonna be
09:27surprised if endy is ready to play the way that looked the other day you yeah we haven't gotten
09:32any reports on if uh flores is on the the taxi squad or anything it seemed like um it is
09:40that left
09:41hip injury and it seemed at least the way donnie kelly spoke of it first somewhat day to day
09:47now the fact that we haven't gotten any i mean they hadn't even checked it at that point yeah they
09:51have no idea had no idea for all i know it could be nothing but it didn't look like it
09:55this is what
09:55uh don kelly had to say about endy's status um thing um but uh for him to leave that inning
10:03off
10:04with a single triolo this was first on lao higher jake to come and have the greater bat after that
10:09and then connor to break it and you know lao it's we talk about you know stacking at bats together
10:14and
10:15i think maybe it was at the beginning of this club huge and i think it was mislabeled regardless
10:20it seems like it's not going to be anything significant but i don't know i don't know about
10:25that i disagree with that he looked like he was in great pain when he took that swing and then
10:30he could barely get to first base right i mean brandon lao also fouled a ball off his kneecap
10:34that we thought might have been season ending and he ended up coming back a couple of games later
10:37if that yeah that looked really serious too it did
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