Well, I had a feeling it was the other hamate bone. The hamate bones are the Dodgers of the human body. They're probably shaped and scented like Tommy Lasorda. The best part, though, is that we can recycle the "ham ... ate?" jokes from last year! No? No. There's nothing good about this.
CONFIRMED: Pablo Sandoval has fractured his left hamate bone. Last year he missed 6 weeks and 41 games.
— Henry Schulman (@hankschulman) May 3, 2012
That's a few weeks on the shelf for one of the two good hitters in the lineup. Conor Gillaspie will come up, most likely. Here's what he's done in Fresno over the last season-plus:
| Year | Age | PA | HR | BB | SO | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 23 | 503 | 11 | 66 | 79 | .297 | .389 | .453 | .842 |
| 2012 | 24 | 104 | 3 | 8 | 16 | .362 | .417 | .521 | .939 |
You have to consider the PCL factor -- the entire league is hitting .275/.340/.417 this year -- but it's still a good line, and it's not like he's that old for the league. The average age for the PCL is 26.5. So if there's a silver lining, it's that Gillaspie has a decent chance of not being Dan Ortmeier or Lance Niekro. When Bill Mueller was Gillaspie's age, he was putting up similar numbers in A-ball. A Mueller-like career has always been my hope for Gillaspie, anyway.
Hopefully, Gillaspie gets some starts over Pill, Theriot, Burriss, or whatever other terrifying permutation Bochy is planning to put out there.
And hopefully when the surgeons pull the hamate bone out of Pablo's hand, they'll flip it off for me.