Yadier Molina is expected to miss a month after the Cardinals catcher took a foul ball to the groin on Saturday while trying to catch a 102 mile-per-hour pitch from Jordan Hicks.
Yadier Molina needed emergency groin surgery after being hit by a foul ball
The Cardinals’ catcher will miss a month.
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
Initially Molina tried to walk it off, but it became quickly apparent that something more serious had occurred when it took him several minutes to regain his breathe, and he began having trouble walking. Molina was rushed into emergency surgery to correct a “traumatic hematoma,” according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
A hematoma is a bruise, in layman’s terms — but the extent of Molina’s injury required immediate attention. Typically hematomas can be treated with massage and rest, but in severe cases the pooling blood can form into a dangerous clot. It’s unclear what type of surgery Molina had, but the most common forms are small procedures (sometimes a series of surgeries) to drain the blood clot and prevent possible infection. In serious cases repair needs to be made to surrounding blood vessels as well.
“That was a bad one,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said after the game about Molina’s injury. “And those ones don’t necessarily feel better tomorrow. That was hard to see.”
Molina has been placed on the disabled list as the Cardinals called up Carson Kelly to fill in during his absence.
