From Mets PR:
METS STATEMENT REGARDING David Wright
“Last night, David Wright jammed the fifth finger of his right hand. An X-ray revealed a small fracture at the middle joint of the finger. This is a non-operative injury. The finger will be splinted and reevaluated tomorrow. David can return to baseball activity as tolerated.”
As a catcher, I’ve fractured both of my pinkies countless times but never missed a game because of it. However, I have no idea of the extent of Wright’s fracture nor the pain — every break is different. From my own experience, such an injury shouldn’t have any effect on his throwing, but it will affect his hitting — which is a damn shame since he started out red hot. From my perspective as a righthanded hitter, a broken right pinky is not as bad as a broken left pinky; but, in my swing, the bottom hand was more dominant as I tried to drive the bat down to the point of contact and put backspin on the ball (which required the bottom hand to lead and control the swing). If Wright’s style is similar, his swing shouldn’t be affected too adversely.
As for putting the pinky in a splint, well, I never did and have two crooked, crazy-looking pinkies to prove it. Ronnie Lott would probably suggest that Wright have his little finger removed if it can get him on the field faster. Not sure I’d go that far, but, that’s what Ronnie would do.
In the meantime, we’ll likely see Ronny Cedeno and Justin Turner taking turns at the hot corner. If Wright heads to the DL — which I cannot imagine happening — perhaps we’ll see Jordany Valdespin promoted and installed at 2B, with Daniel Murphy moving to 3B. I know, I know — Terry Collins insisted that Murphy would stay at 2B “no matter what” but he also said that Murphy wouldn’t be removed in the late innings of games when they were ahead, either. On the other hand, natural third baseman Zach Lutz might also be an option, as well as Josh Satin.
Let’s keep our, ahem, fingers crossed that David Wright won’t be out for more than a day or two.
