CLEVELAND — Like many young kids in the area, Jose Ramirez is hitting off a tee. But, for the Guardians , it's a positive development as they await the return of their star third baseman.
Ramirez fractured the hamate bone in his left hand in mid-June and was expected to miss up to six weeks, putting his likely return into late July. When Ramirez went down with the injury, he was hitting .239 with a .757 OPS, 10 home runs, 18 doubles, 33 RBIs and a league-leading 24 stolen bases in 72 games.
"He's done some tee work and then at some point over the next couple days he'll progress to overhead BP," Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said on July 5. "Jose's been doing a lot of baseball work."
When Ramirez sustained a similar injury in 2019 to his right hand, he missed four weeks, though the Guardians are erring on the side of caution when it comes to his timeline to return.
"It's really individually specific," Antonetti said. "It's how well the recovery site heals, how much discomfort they have over the surgery site and when they can progress to activity. So far, Josey has met or exceeded all of those checkpoints along the way. So hopefully we'll be on the shorter side of that. But, again, he still has a lot of activity and a lot of boxes to check between now and then."
Ryan Lewis covers the Guardians for the Akron Beacon Journal. He can be reached at rlewis1@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: When will Jose Ramirez play? Guardians update status of his injury
