Athletics rookie Joshua Kuroda-Grauer required emergency surgery after sustaining an injury in a game that was truly nuts.
While facing the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday, July 20, Kuroda-Grauer, 23, ruptured a testicle after taking a foul ball to his nether-region during his team’s 5-2 win. He stayed on the ground for several minutes as medical staff checked on him before standing back up.
“It looks like he will come up with no balls and one strike,” Athletics play-by-play man Chris Caray said with a chuckle.
Somehow, Kuroda-Grauer managed to stay in the game, lining a single to center field and playing another inning in the field before being removed.
The Athletics later placed him on the 10-day injured list and said in a press release that he is now “resting comfortably,” two words that may be difficult to believe. .
“I think he might be the only player in Major League history to [rupture] a testicle, get a hit, then play a half-inning of defense,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said, according to MLB.com. “It shows you the fight that this kid has. His desire to be on the field and just the will and want is pretty remarkable.”
Kotsay, 50, added, “Bad timing for an injury. But we’re thankful the surgery went well and he’s recovering well. … We’re thankful that he’s going to be fine and that it doesn’t impact his life.”
The injury comes at a rough time for the Athletics, whose playoff hopes seem to have completely faded. Kuroda-Grauer was one of the bright spots to the 43-58 team, with the organization’s No. 8 prospect batting .417 with seven doubles and a home run over 16 career games.
He isn’t the only player to have ever endured testicular distress during a game. In 2009, Adrian Beltré, then of the Seattle Mariners, attempted to field a ground ball that took an unexpected hop, hitting him right where it hurts. Remarkably, he not only finished the 14-inning game after sustaining the injury, saying that he knew the team didn’t have an extra infielder to sub in for him, he also scored the winning run.
“When I look down, after the game, it wasn’t a pretty sight,” Beltré said at the time. “My testicle got the size of a grapefruit. Thank God it didn’t really damage anything. It took me two weeks. It was a tear. A lot of blood inside, but it didn’t damage anything.”
Remarkably, Beltré did not wear a grapefruit-sized cup after that, saying it didn’t “seem comfortable.”
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