Pirates lose Kang for season due to leg injury

Kang came into Thursday’s game hitting.287/.355/.461 with 15 home runs and 58 RBIs in 125 games. “I guess at a certain point you have to ask yourself what’s the cost”.

But both then and now, most observers, including Maddon, believe it’s a baseball play which happens often, though most slides don’t cause injury. “It’s a hard slide”. I doubt he was trying to intentionally injure Kang, but I think he didn’t care almost as much about the consequences of what looks pretty questionable so long as he broke up the double play.

After dropping three of four against the Cubs this week to put their lead in the wild-card race in a precarious position, the Pirates now have to deal with a season-ending injury to Jung Ho Kang and a pair of Cy Young candidates in the first two of a three-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Matt Carpenter finished a triple short of the cycle while Tommy Pham had three hits as the St. Louis Cardinals moved one step closer to the National League Central crown with a 6-3 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers.

For his part, Kang was starting to pick things up in his previous eight games, hitting.303/.324/.545 with an.869 OPS and two home runs. La Stella and Russell drove in two runs each and were two of four Chicago players with two hits along with Rizzo and center fielder Dexter Fowler. It is unfortunate that we have seen two Japanese infielders, Akinori Iwakuma (torn ACL, Rays, 2009) and Tsuyoshi Nishioka (fractured fibula, Twins, 2011), sustain significant injuries while being unable to avoid contact with runners on plays at second base.

His most recent return comes following a successful rehab assignment with the Cubs’ Single-A affiliate in the Myrtle Beach Pelicans. “It just stinks because he didn’t have time to jump over me”. “Three of them were down, below the zone, but I pulled them in on lefties and that’s just a bad spot to be in”. The Pirates’ offense tilts significantly to the right; of their six regulars with an OPS+ of at least 100, four are righties (McCutchen, Kang, Marte and Francisco Cervelli); Pedro Alvarez is a lefty and Neil Walker is a switch-hitter. “We’ve got to play better baseball moving forward”. The Clemente Award recognizes a major league player who best represents the game of baseball through positive contributions on and off the field, including sportsmanship and community involvement. “Anybody that wants to go there, you don’t know the game at all“. He began another rehab assignment with Indianapolis on August. 20, but he was shut down for the season in early September. He did not play. When shortstop Jordy Mercer went down at the end of July, Kang stepped up at shortstop once Ramirez was acquired to play third.

Infante hit a three-run home run in the second inning, a two-run double in the fifth inning and a two-run single in the seventh.

Anthony Rizzo started a six-run fifth inning with his 30th homer, and the Cubs rallied for a 9-6 victory Thursday.