Getty White Sox center fielder Luis Robert has been cleared to begin a rehab assignment and will be on the field at High-A Winston-Salem on Wednesday as he comes back from a Grade 3 right hip flexor strain. “I’m excited for the process to begin,” Robert said. With left fielder Eloy Jimenez into his second week of rehab games, it was the latest piece of recent good news coming from the recovery corner of the Sox’ lengthy injury chain. Robert suffered the injury May 4 running out a ground ball. “I was afraid of not coming back this season,” he said Monday.
AP Photos MINNEAPOLIS Jose Abreu, who plays through everything, thought he might not be able to play through this one. “I thought it was fractured,” Abreu said of his left knee, which was hit on the side by a pitch in the White Sox’ game against the Mariners on June 27. Abreu hit the ground, pounding the grass in pain. “My leg went numb,” he said. Fans expected the worst it has been that kind of year for injuries but two days later, Abreu was in the lineup. It’s the Abreu way. Play through everything. “My family,” he said via a translator, explaining what motivates him to play hurt. “They are my strength. I come here every day here to do my best and to honor them, and I know they have my back they support me. That’s why I come here every day to play. It doesn’t matter if I’m in pain or not, soreness or not, I have to be there for them. My mom, my wife, my sons, they are my everything.”
AP
Yasmani Grandal with a strained left calf Monday. Grandal had missed the last 2½ games with tightness in his left calf but returned Monday. In the sixth inning, he spun out of the batter’s box after checking his swing. He hobbled away and went down, lying face down on the grass for several moments before getting up and being helped off the field. Grandal did not put any weight on his left foot and was on crutches after the game. “You saw his reaction,” manager
Tony La Russa said. “Everyone is really concerned about him. He was playing outstanding All-Star type baseball. It’s really uncertain what the diagnosis is going to be.”
David Banks/Getty Images
CLEVELAND There is the Jose Abreu for all to see, the RBI machine driving in a clutch run with a tough, game-winning at-bat against the Indians that manager Tony La Russa called an all-timer.
And there is Abreu behind the scenes, the team leader on a bus to the hotel after going 0-for-5 and leaving the the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position in his last at-bat of a 6-5 loss to the Indians, consoling and pouring wisdom into rookie Yermin Mercedes.
“I was just telling him this is not a fair sport,” Abreu said Wednesday through translator Billy Russo. “You don’t make a season in two months. You have to work hard and grind throughout the whole season. And sometimes, you don’t get the results you are hoping (for). But you have to keep working.”
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