Prior to last night’s thrilling extra inning walk-off win vs. the Cleveland Indians, the Chicago White Sox placed catcher A.J. Pierzynski on the 15-day disabled list (retroactive to August 13) with a fractured left wrist and purchased the contract of catcher Donny Lucy from Class AAA Charlotte.
Pierzynski, 34, suffered the injury on Friday vs. Kansas City when he was hit by a Bruce Chen pitch in the third inning. He is batting .296 (110-371) with six home runs and 39 RBI in 105 games played this season, including a .326 (85-261) average in his last 74 contests. Pierzynski had 11 hits in his last 18 at-bats prior to the injury.
This is the first significant time A.J. will miss in his career. Which is an amazing fact when you consider he plays catcher, and you know how much of a toll that has on the body.
The 6-foot-3, 230-pounder leads American League catchers in average, games played (103) and innings caught (862.1). It is the first career trip to the disabled list for Pierzynski, who ranks 36th all-time with 1,416 games caught and 19th since 1946 with 11,950.2 innings caught (IC). He and Jason Kendall are the only active catchers with at least 1,000.0 IC in each of the last nine seasons (2002-10).
He’ll be evaluated again on September 1st, at which point we’ll know if it requires surgery or not to heal. If surgery is mandated, it would shut down Pierzynski for the season. For now, Tyler Flowers is the Sox starting catcher.
Lucy, the backup, is hitting .158 (21-133) with four home runs and nine RBI in 40 games with the Knights this season. The 6-foot-2, 205-pound Lucy has played in 15 career games with the White Sox (2007 and 2010), going 8-30 (.267) with one homer and two RBI.
Lucy, who will wear uniform No. 55, originally was drafted by the Sox in the second round of the 2002 First-Year Player Draft.