Bautista leaves with wrist injury as Jays fall to Yankees

Jose Bautista left tonight’s game against the Yankees in the middle of an at-bat, after hitting a long foul ball in the eighth inning, then falling to the ground, clutching his wrist.

As if that isn’t the worst thing in the world.

On the Yankees’ YES broadcast, ex-Yank Paul O’Neill immediately started speculating that it looked like a broken hamate bone– an injury that is common among baseball players, often happens on a swing with no contact between the player and the baseball, and causes a lot of pain and a loss of strength in the wrist, as a hook-like bone breaks off, needing to be surgically removed, rather than allowed to heal.

“I’m just guessing here, but I’ve seen a lot of hitters, and you didn’t see anything other than that,” he says, after giving background on the injury and explaining that he’d seen Matt Nokes go down with one sometime during the last millennium.

Obviously he’s not a doctor, but he described rather accurately the scene we witnessed, as Bautista ended up having his palm and upper wrist handled by trainer George Poulis, before heading into the dugout for further treatment.

If– and it’s still a giant if– that’s the injury, here’s how it was reported earlier in the summer by Brittany Ghiroli of Orioles.com when Nick Markakis suffered one…

A broken hamate bone is a fairly common baseball injury, and X-rays typically don’t pick it up — which explains why Markakis’ X-rays on Wednesday were negative. He was examined in Sarasota by specialist Dr. John Hand on Thursday afternoon. The procedure is brief and typically under 20 minutes with an estimated recovery timetable of from 2-4 weeks. It’s relatively good news for the Orioles, who were fearful Markakis — their most durable player — would be out for the rest of the season.

“If you had told me that was what it was going to be, I would have signed up for it in blood,” Orioles manager Buck Showalter said Thursday afternoon. “It’s not that bad.”

The Jays’ official Twitter has confirmed only that it’s a left wrist injury.

On the Jays broadcast, Pat Tabler and Buck Martinez spoke about Bautista’s play at the plate in the sixth inning, in which Bautista “appeared to wince” after getting up from sliding home as the tying run.

Obviously we have no idea at this point, and it’s plainly ridiculous to move forward acting as if any of this speculation has even the slightest relationship to the truth, but… that’s what happened, and that’s what a bunch of ex-ballplayers said about it before the Jays confirmed what we all saw with our own eyes: that Bautista injured his left wrist.

We’ll keep you updated as actual information becomes available…