Devastating.
Purely and simply devastating.
There is hardly another way to sum up the awful fortune dealt to Pittsburgh Pirates valuable rookie shortstop Jung Ho Kang on Thursday afternoon after he was taken out while turning a double play against the Chicago Cubs.
Cubs left fielder Chris Coghlan slid into Kang's left knee in the first inning, causing a fractured tibia and a torn MCL. Needless to say at this point in the year, Kang is done for the season as the Pirates push toward the playoffs and attempt to overtake the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Central.
Dejan Kovacevic of DKPittsburghSports.com (via USA Today's Bob Nightengale) first reported the severity of the injury, and Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported Kang would undergo surgery Thursday night.
"This is one of those things in baseball, you know you've got to go on, you know someone else has got to step up, but it hurts," Hall of Fame pitcher and MLB Network analyst John Smoltz said on MLB Tonight. "It hurts in an emotional way. Pittsburgh's going to be in the playoffs, no doubt, but it takes a little notch away from the depth they had working for them."
Kang and Coghlan both downplayed the intent of the play. Coghlan sent a note to the home clubhouse after the Cubs' 9-6 win, per Patrick Mooney of Comcast SportsNet, and Kang later said in a statement the play was not dirty and that Coghlan was "playing the game the way it should be played."
Kang, a South Korean import who signed a four-year, $11 million deal before this season, was a major contributor to the Pirates' success this year. He went into Thursday hitting .287/.355/.461 with an .816 OPS; he also had 15 home runs, a 123 OPS+ and was second on the team in FanGraphs' wins above replacement (4.0) behind superstar center fielder Andrew McCutchen.
Those numbers took Kang from a platoon role early in the season to a vital part of the club's fortunes, and he was also in the conversation for the NL Rookie of the Year Award.
Pirates when Jung Ho Kang starts 63-40, average 4.5 runs per game
when he doesn't start 24-19, average 3.8 runs per game
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) September 17, 2015
The loss was Pittsburgh's third in a row, all to the chasing Cubs, who have dropped the Pirates to 4.5 games behind the Cardinals as of the end of the third defeat. The Pirates allowed the Cubs to get within two games of the first wild-card berth, which would hold home-field advantage in the one-game playoff.
The Pirates now go into Los Angeles to face a Dodgers team that has gone 17-5 in its last 22 games—one of the best in the majors since Aug. 25. The Pirates will also have to face Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw, front-runners for the league's Cy Young Award, in the first two games of the weekend set.
Later in the month the Pirates visit the Cubs for three games and return home to host the Cardinals for three more. Now they will do all of this without arguably their second-best player. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Bill Brink relayed a comment from Neil Walker:
Neil Walker: "They outplayed us, and then the icing on the cake is they knock out one of our best players."
— Bill Brink (@BrinkPG) September 17, 2015
Send our teammate Jung Ho Kang prayers. Heal up Chingu(friend). We got u. Best believe that
— Andrew McCutchen (@TheCUTCH22) September 17, 2015
The Pirates, who have lost 10 of their last 18 games, had issues before Kang's lineup-altering injury. In the 17 games before Thursday, the team had a .246/.313/.369 slash line with a .682 OPS. All of those numbers are below league average, and for this month the Pirates rate in the league's bottom half in overall offense.
For his part, Kang was starting to pick things up in his previous eight games, hitting .303/.324/.545 with an .869 OPS and two home runs. Losing him and his defensive versatility—he plays shortstop and third base—is a significant blow, but the Pirates believe they can absorb it.
"Our bench is definitely built for something like this," shortstop Jordy Mercer, who suffered a strained MCL earlier this season on a similar play to the one that took out Kang, told Adam Berry of MLB.com. "Obviously, we don't want anything like this to happen, but in case something did happen, we've got guys that can fill in right away."
The Pirates are about to embark on their most critical road trip of the season, facing two playoff teams in a 10-game stretch. The offense is sputtering. One of their best hitters is finished. Their grip on the top wild-card spot is iffy, and their hopes of taking the top spot in the division are dashed.
This is still a playoff team, though. They still have a legitimate middle-of-the-order star in McCutchen, an ace in Gerrit Cole and a run-preventing bullpen that is among the best in the majors. Those tools play well in October.
Now they just have to do so without one of their best players.
All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.
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