Tim Tebow likely out for the rest of the baseball season due to a broken hand Ph...
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Tim Tebow has shown signs of life as a baseball player in his second year in the Metsâ minor-league system. The 2007 Heisman Trophy winner had improved significantly with the Binghamton Rumble Ponies, batting .273 with six home runs through 84 games and even earning some only-slightly-dubious Eastern League All-Star honors in the process.
But he wonât get a chance to build on that in August and September. A broken hamate bone will likely end the burly left fielderâs season and extinguish any slight chance heâd had at a late-se ason promotion to AAA or higher.
What does this mean for Tebow?
Tebow could have been a late-season callup thanks to the Metsâ inept 2018. New York currently sits in last place in the NL East â" behind even the fire sale Miami Marlins â" with a 40-56 record. They just traded away their top reliever for pennies on the dollar. One of their starting pitchers is currently on the disabled list with hand, foot, and mouth disease.
So, huh, nothing the Mets do is going to ruin the integrity of a season thatâs already in freefall. If Tebow kept plugging â" and he was batting .297 in his last 10 games before the injury â" thereâs a non-negligible chance a franchise struggling for positive headlines could have called him up to struggle for 10 games to close out a meaningless year. Except that last-ditch option is off the table.
The good news for Tebow is that his injury is a fairly common one in MLB circles. According to former Marlins infielder Jeff Baker, itâs one of the better broken bones to deal with in the hand/wrist area:
âIâve seen guys coming back anywhere from 2 1/2 weeks to six weeks,â Baker said. âI had surgery. The biggest thing is you have the wound heal. After that, itâs a pain tolerance thing, and youâre good to go.â
âYou have to have it removed,â Baker said. âThey take it out. There is no strengthening, no therapy. I donât say this lightly, but if youâre going to break something in your hand, the hamate is going to be the way to go.â
The bone rests at the base of the hand â" right where Tebowâs bottom hand would be while holding a bat. Heâll likely have the bone removed before undergoing a four-to-six week recovery.
Giancarlo Stanton, notably, suffered a broken hamate back in 2015, ending his season after 74 games. Though heâd struggle in 2016, heâd return in a major way by 2017 when he won NL MVP honors and smashed 59 ho me runs.
So thatâs the upper bound for Tebowâs return. The lower one is getting called up by the Mets next September and immediately getting rabies.
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