The Guardians announced that outfielder Angel Martínez is headed to the 10-day injured list. He’ll presumably be down longer than 10 days, as he’s been diagnosed with a nondisplaced fracture in his left foot. Outfielder Petey Halpin has been recalled from Triple-A Columbus in his place.
Martínez suffered the injury over the weekend when he fouled a Tarik Skubal pitch into his foot (video link). He now becomes the second regular to land on the injured list due to a fracture this week. Cleveland also lost lineup cornerstone José Ramírez to a hamate fracture that’ll sideline him for a month or more.
The 24-year-old Martínez looked to be on the cusp of a breakout early in the season. The young switch-hitter raced out of the gate with a .270/.314/.507 batting line in his first 162 plate appearances before falling into a prolonged slump. From May 19 through June 6, he collected just seven hits in 55 at-bats — all without drawing even one walk along the way. Martínez had just started to show some signs of emerging from that cold spell when he suffered his injury Saturday.
Lack of consistency notwithstanding, Martínez has been nearly league average at the plate overall. It’s a power-over-OBP approach, evidenced by a .239/.276/.442 slash on the season so far, but the Guardians were struggling to score runs even before Ramírez and Martínez were injured. Losing Martínez and his team-leading 11 home runs — already matching last year’s total through 484 plate appearances — is a notable loss.
With Martínez out for a yet-to-be-determined period, the Cleveland outfield will consist primarily of Steven Kwan, Daniel Schneemann, Chase DeLauter, Stuart Fairchild and Halpin. DeLauter ripped five homers in his first seven major league games this season but has hit only two since. Schneemann’s bat has cooled considerably after a BABIP-driven hot streak to begin the year. Kwan has gone from one of the game’s best pure hitters to an offensive liability over the past calendar year. Fairchild is a career fourth/fifth outfielder. Halpin was sitting on a below-average .246/.319/.366 slash in Triple-A. As MLBTR’s Anthony Franco laid out in greater detail last week — Cleveland should be prioritizing some form of outfield upgrade between now and the Aug. 3 trade deadline.
