Domonic Brown Breaks Hand, likely out 3-6 Weeks
According to Jim Salisbury of CSNPhilly.com, outfielder Domonic Brown broke his right hand during an at-bat earlier on Saturday. Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer breaks it down via twitter.
Against Paul Maholm of the Pirates, Brown fouled a ball off and appeared to shake his hand following the pitch, according to Gelb. He then singled up the middle on the next pitch, but was not in the field the following inning. Now, we know why.
Brown broke the hamate bone in his hand and will likely be out 3-6 weeks after surgery. More to come..
UPDATE (4:44 pm): Gelb also tweeted that Ruben Amaro Jr. says no one has the right field job locked up – although you can bet it’ll be Ben Francisco, who is crushing the ball currently. What a tough break for Dom Brown. He may have gotten his first hit of the spring with a broken hand.
What it likely means beyond Ben Francisco being the starter is that Brown will get many, many reps in Triple-A this year – perhaps more than he and others originally thought. What it also means is lack of power. Our own Paul Boyé found an interesting stat from a Rob Neyer column. Neyer says that it can take between 12-18 months to regain full power after a broken hamate in the hand (Scroll down to the answer at 1:03 pm).
If that’s the case, we may not see the real Dom Brown until 2012. Wow.
