Mariners place Nelson Cruz on 10-day disabled list with a right ankle sprain
SAN FRANCISCO – The Mariners have placed Nelson Cruz on the 10-day disabled list with a sprained right ankle and recalled infielder/outfielder Taylor Motter from Class AAA Tacoma to take his spot on the 25-man roster.
The move is retroactive to April 1, meaning Cruz would be eligible to return on April 11 – the final game of the road trip in Kansas City. With the Mariners playing without a designated hitter the next two days vs. the Giants at AT&T Park, the off day on Friday in Minneapolis and the previous off day on Monday, the move made sense. Cruz would miss at minimum seven games.
“We made a decision to give Nelson a few days and put him on the disabled list,” manager Scott Servais said. “Coming into the National League games, you don’t want to be a man short if you can help it. I think our medical people felt that giving him a good seven or eight days down, obviously 10 with the DL, is the best thing to do at this point. I’m very optimistic and hopeful that he’ll be back at the end of 10 days. But we’ll have to wait and see.”
If he is ready to go when the 10 days are up, it seems unlikely that the team would have Cruz would fly all the way to Kansas City to play the final game – a day game – of the road trip. They would probably give him an extra day and activate him for homestand that opens on April 13 vs. the A’s.
Cruz had a MRI on the ankle on Sunday. Servais said it didn’t show any significant damage or torn ligaments.
“Everything else is good there,” Servais said. “It’s an ankle sprain. Hopefully, Nellie gets back a little quicker than most. He’s not going to be playing defense. So it’s just him feeling good with a bat in his hand and being able to get down the baseline a little bit. We’ll make adjustments. You just have to deal with some of the crazy stuff that happens over the course of the year.”
It wasn’t classified as a high ankle sprain.
“It’s a normal ankle sprain,” Servais said. “Everybody was saying, ‘Oh, it’s a high ankle sprain, oh, it’s going to be four weeks,’ really, the sky is not falling. He twisted his ankle. We are lucky it’s not anything more serious than that.”
Cruz isn’t with the team in San Francisco and probably won’t go to Minnesota. Could it be a sign that the injury is more serious than first expected? There were some rumblings that the injury was more serious than first expected. Servais laughed at the conspiracy theories.
“There’s nothing to read into that,” Servais said. “With a sprained ankle instead of hobbling around on the road, on an airplane and in hotels, we thought, ‘Let’s just do it at home. We’ve got qualified people there to take care of him.’ ”
Cruz injured the ankle after slipping and falling down the dugout stairs on Saturday in the Mariners second game of the season.
Motter gives the team positional flexibility and a right-handed bat. He can play all three infield positions and both corner outfielder spots.