Minnesota Twins place Joe Mauer on disabled list
2014 simply hasn’t been the year for Minnesota Twins first baseman Joe Mauer. It got a little worse…
Joe Mauer is heading on the 15-day DL. Chris Colabello recalled from Triple-A Rochester.
— Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) July 2, 2014
Mauer left last night’s game due to the preliminary diagnosis of a right oblique strain. Today, that was confirmed. Here’s Mauer on the injury (via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com):
"“I’ve been kind of battling this area for about a week or so or maybe a little more,” Mauer said. “I’ve been getting stiff but I’ve been getting it loose and everything has been fine. But today on that one swing on the ball down the line it felt like somebody hit me pretty hard right there.”"
But Mauer’s 2014 season at the plate has been as far from an ordinary Mauer season as ever. He’s currently posted a slashline of .271/.342/.353. Should this injury end his season (and some oblique injuries have a tendency to linger), those (batting average, OBP, SLG) would all be career lows for Mauer.
When it was announced that Mauer would move from behind the plate to first base, the first thing that popped into everyone’s head was Mauer’s health. Until this, Mauer has been in good health this season, not playing in only six of the Twins 82 games.
As Bollinger’s Tweet indicates, the Twins have recalled Chris Colabello.
Colabello got off to an amazing start (.295/.343/.484 for April), but was optioned when Oswaldo Arcia joined the club after Arcia’s rehab stint. It wasn’t just Arcia coming back that played a role in Colabello’s demotion. So was a May triple-slash of .125/.169/.196.