The Kansas City Royals received good news regarding outfielder Hunter Renfroe on Wednesday.
Royals manager Matt Quatraro said before the team’s game against the New York Yankees that Renfroe will not require surgery after fouling two baseballs off his left foot during Monday’s series opener.
“The initial X-ray showed a fracture, but then the CT scan and the MRI showed that was not the case,” Quatraro said. “So he does not need surgery and he will be back in a much shorter amount of time.”
The Royals revealed that Renfroe has a bone bruise with a stress reaction. There is a chance he can progress to resuming baseball activity soon.
For now, he will continue to recover and receive treatment for the injury.
“He has to be on the 10-day IL (injured list), but if we progress him, it’s activity that he can tolerate,” Quatraro said. “… I’m really glad that we found out that it wasn’t (a fracture) and for him specifically to not have to deal with that.”
Renfroe was hurt during the third inning of Monday’s game. He sustained the injury during a 12-pitch at-bat against pitcher Carlos Rodón. Renfroe was later replaced by outfielder MJ Melendez for the remainder of the game.
The Royals recalled Drew Waters and Nick Pratto from Triple-A Omaha on Tuesday while also placing infielder Adam Frazier on the bereavement list.
Waters went 0-for-4 in his season debut Tuesday evening. Meanwhile, Pratto pitched a scoreless inning in the Royals’ 10-1 loss to the Yankees.
It was Pratto’s first pitching appearance as a big-leaguer, and he became the second Royals position player to pitch this season.
Renfroe is hitting .200 with six home runs and 26 RBIs in 170 at-bats. In recent weeks, he had begun to find a rhythm at the plate.
In his most recent seven games, Renfroe hit .409 (9-for-22) and registered two strikeouts.
“To hear that,” Quatraro said of the positive injury update he shared on Wednesday, “I was extremely happy. I know Renfroe had a big smile on his face, too.”
