Monday night did not go well for Cincinnati Reds infielder Jeimer Candelario. He had been out to a nice start with the Toros del Este after joining them late in their regular season of the Dominican Winter League. Last night was his fifth game for Candelario, and after getting two days off between each of his first two games he played in he was playing for the third consecutive night. He grounded out to shortstop in the 1st inning. He came back to the plate again in the 4th inning and again hit a grounder to shortstop. It took an outstanding play by Sergio Alcantara to make a play on the ball and initially he was credited with the out. But the call was challenged and overturned.
The result of the play wasn’t the story, though. Jeimer Candelario would exit the game for a pinch runner. He lunged to the bag in his final stride and seemed to land a bit awkwardly. You can see the play below.
There are probably two things to take away from the video. First is that the initial reaction from Candelario makes it clear he felt something. The reaction wasn’t one of pure agony or pain, which is probably good. But he certainly felt something.
But the second thing to note is that shortly after the call he bent over to take off his shin guard. I’m just talking out loud here, but if he felt there were a serious injury/issue at hand, it’s tough to imagine his reaction to that would be to take off his shin guard. That’s what players do when they are about to hand it to the first base coach so they can prepare to run the bases.
The Toros only have six games left remaining in the regular season before a Christmas break that will lead into the start of the playoffs on the 27th. The Toros are in last place and are unlikely to be one of the four (of six) teams to advance to the playoffs. We’ll have to wait and see if Candelario plays in the next few days – they play every day through the 22nd when their regular season ends.
A duel of former Reds
Over the weekend there was a fun match up of former Cincinnati pitchers. Starting for Licey was Lisalverto Bonilla. He was facing off against Johnny Cueto and Escogido. The two former Reds dueled for five innings and both allowed just one run. Cueto’s bullpen did him no favors as they would allow five runs in the next four innings as his club fell 6-2.
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