Zack Gelof avoided a fracture after Matt Chapman stepped on his right hand Tuesday, but his 24-game hit streak is over — and Brent Rooker's return remains uncertain
In the second inning of Tuesday's game against the San Francisco Giants, Matt Chapman hit a laser off the wall in left field that Tyler Soderstrom fired into second base, where Zack Gelof collected the throw in plenty of time. In the process of catching the ball and tagging out the runner, Gelof put his right hand on the ground in front of the base, and Chapman stepped directly on it.
Gelof immediately sprinted toward the dugout to be examined by the trainer, and was pulled from the game. The A's would later say that he was pulled due to a contusion and a laceration on his right hand.
"There's a laceration to the hand," A's manager Mark Kotsay said after the game. "No stitches required. Pretty much got him just on the top, in between the thumb and the index [finger]. There's some swelling. No fracture, X-ray was negative. Best positive outcome for that situation."
The A's will be monitoring how the swelling comes down in the next day. They're expecting some soreness in that right hand, but for now they're listing Gelof as day-to-day. "No IL right now," Kotsay said.
The other piece of unfortunate news here is that Gelof's 24-game hit streak also came to an end when he left the game. It had been the longest current streak in baseball entering play.
Brent Rooker Update
A's DH Brent Rooker landed on the IL with a bone bruise on his left knee on June 12, and in the team's weekly injury report, they said that Rooker is continuing to rehab in West Sacramento, and he is not undergoing any baseball activities at this time.
"I think we didn't know what the timeline would be," Kotsay told reporters before Tuesday's game. "We were optimistic about a timeline that we wanted, but the body doesn't always work like that. I think that's one of the main reasons why I always say I can't give timelines, because you just don't know."
The A's skipper went on to say that just because he's not undergoing baseball activities right now doesn't mean that he won't turn a corner and starting to do baseball activities in the coming days.
Kotsay believes they'll have a better idea of where he's at by the end of the week.
With Rooker on the IL and a slew of left-handers expected to be on the docket for the opposition, the A's added Joey Meneses to the roster as a DH/1B option for the club. He has gone 1-for-5 with a walk in two games.
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