MLB Injuries: Seth Lugo’s toe and other strange baseball injuries

New York Mets pitcher Seth Lugo banged his foot in his hotel room. He may have to do a lot worse to qualify for these MLB injuries from the Twilight Zone.

Another season-to-be, another somewhat freakish baseball injury. The newest victim is Seth Lugo, the New York Mets righthanded relief pitcher, who’s going to miss three days’ work at least after fracturing his left pinkie toe… when he inadvertently banged it in his hotel room. It’s a little difficult to land, as Lugo does on his left foot, when he delivers when even one toe is compromised like that.

Toe injuries are far more consequential than people often believe. When Hall of Famer Earl Averill hit one off the big toe of fellow Hall of Famer Dizzy Dean, in the 1937 All-Star Game, Dean altered his motion to compensate for the fracture and ruined his shoulder. It’s the major reason why Dean went from never better his first six years to just another pitcher in the second half of his career.

Lugo can take comfort. He’d have to do a lot more than just an inadvertent bang on his foot to join the roster of baseball’s most outlandish-seeming injuries.

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A little less than a year ago, Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Blake Snell got a message by way of his toe that there’s a right and a wrong way to handle heavy objects.

Snell thought a granite decorative stand in his bathroom didn’t look quite right where it was. So, he elected to move it. Forgetting that it was a four-piece structure weighing eighty pounds in total. Uh, oh.

A heavy enough portion landed on the fourth toe of Snell’s landing foot, costing him some time on the injured list. The lefthander was distinctly unamused.

“It’s right outside the shower,” he told The Athletic. “I was like, ‘I’m moving this, it looks stupid.’ I went to move it, I lifted it up and it wasn’t glued to the pole. And the pole came crashing down. Really dumb. That’s what happened.”

Foolish is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but whether or not the New York Mets righty and Tampa Bays ace’s toe injuries qualify high on baseball’s long enough roll of bizarre MLB injuries is probably a matter of perspective.