It appears Cleveland Guardians designated hitter David Fry is going to be OK, though he’s going to need 6-8 weeks to recover after taking a foul-tipped 99 mph fastball to the face.
The pitcher who threw that fastball, Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal, was visibly horrified after seeing where his pitch ended up during Tuesday’s game. Fry immediately fell to the ground and was bleeding before being carted off the field and taken to a hospital.
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As he revealed to reporters Wednesday, Skubal was concerned enough that he hitched a ride from Guardians manager Stephen Vogt to visit Fry in the hospital Tuesday night. A group of Guardians players also reportedly made the trip.
The Guardians released a statement Wednesday revealing that Fry sustained “multiple, minimally displaced, left-sided facial and nasal fractures” from the pitch. He has already been discharged from the hospital and is expected to make a full recovery with no surgery needed.
Skubal’s visit is a nice reminder that a tense and potentially historic division race doesn’t mean players can’t be human beings toward one another.
Wednesday’s game was the opener of a three-game Tigers-Guardians series that could very well decide the AL Central. The Tigers were once as many as 15.5 games ahead of the Guardians in the division race and still led by 9.5 games as recently Sept. 10, but Cleveland has reeled off a stretch of 15 wins in 16 games while Detroit has lost 10 of its past 11 games.
The Guardians led the division by one game after Wednesday, with the head-to-head tiebreaker. If they finish the job and win the AL Central, it will be the largest comeback in the standings in MLB history.
Skubal has been far from a problem for Detroit during its free fall, as he is heavily favored to take home a second straight AL Cy Young Award. He currently leads the AL in ERA (2.21), FIP (2.46), WHIP (0.891) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (7.30) with 195 1/3 innings pitched across 31 starts.
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