Angels’ Anthony Rendon to undergo season-ending wrist surgery
Anthony Rendon’s season is officially over.
The Angels’ injured third baseman, who was diagnosed with an ECU tendon subluxation in his right wrist, will have season-ending surgery early next week, the team announced Friday.
The team’s athletic trainer, Mike Frostad, explained to reporters in Seattle that Rendon’s tendon is coming out of an attachment point and is considered a dislocation or partial dislocation of the tendon. That’s what is causing the inflammation, and ultimately the discomfort, in his wrist.
Rendon tried to delay the surgery, which has a recovery time of four to six months, and play through the pain in his wrist, not wanting to spend another season sidelined.
Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Robbie Ray took a no-hitter into the seventh inning before the Angels suffered their 19th loss in 22 games.
“I love these group of guys, going to battle with them every single day. That’s why I kept trying to push through it as best as I could,” Rendon said, adding that Thursday was his “last straw” to try to make it work, but it didn’t.
“There’s stuff in [my wrist] that’s out of place,” Rendon said Friday. “It’s gotta be put back together and surgery is the only way that’s gonna happen.”
The Angels, who signed Rendon to a seven-year, $245-million deal with a no-trade clause before the 2020 season, will be without him for the majority of a second straight season.
In the 45 games he played in 2022, he logged 37 hits, 15 runs, five home runs, 24 RBIs and drew 23 walks. He’ll have played a total of 155 games by the end of this third year of that lofty contract.
In 2021, he played only 58 games after missing time because of a left groin strain in April, a left knee bruise in May, a left hamstring strain in July and a right hip impingement in August. That hip injury led to season-ending surgery as well.
For the record, 2020 was a short season for everyone in baseball after the coronavirus pandemic shut down all sports. Major League Baseball’s 2020 was further delayed and shortened after a lengthy and heated battle involving the players’ union and the league over terms for restarting that season.
So his 52 games that year, in which he finished 10th in MVP voting, was not an outlier.
Rendon was first put on the injured list this season because of right wrist inflammation on May 28 and returned on June 10, but his wrist issue started before that. Rendon told reporters Friday he noticed the issue during his third at-bat of the May 8 game against the Washington Nationals. He received treatment, but the problem returned during their series with the Toronto Blue Jays at the end of the month.
When he returned from the IL in time for the Angels’ series with the New York Mets last weekend, he felt fine. On Tuesday, however, the medication he was taking to alleviate symptoms in his wrist did not “kick in in time,” he assumed, and the injury flared up again.
It’s clear the Angels haven’t gotten their money’s worth in oft-injured Anthony Rendon, and that could complicate their hopes of re-signing Shohei Ohtani.
Rendon informed interim manager Phil Nevin of his wrist being increasingly uncomfortable after his at-bat in the fourth inning of the game against the Dodgers, the first time since the beginning of the season that he appeared in a lineup with Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout and Taylor Ward, who returned Tuesday from hamstring and neck injuries.
He was pulled and replaced at third by Matt Duffy.
He traveled with the team to Seattle for a five-game series against the Mariners, with the hope that rest would help. He was even still listed as available off the bench in the opener Thursday.
But Rendon’s ability to keep playing with the bothersome wrist was dependent on his pain tolerance. It was still too much, and the increasing dosage of the medication he was prescribed to help him play through the discomfort was not something with which Rendon was comfortable.
Rendon says he plans to stay around the team the rest of the season, but with him now done for the season, the Angels do have options for third base.
Jack Mayfield, who was around from the taxi squad as early as Wednesday but not officially recalled from the Salt Lake Bees until Friday, got the start at the hot corner for Friday’s game.
The Angels struggled to get hits off Dodgers pitchers during the two-game Freeway Series while there wasn’t any clarity on Anthony Rendon’s wrist.
There’s also Duffy, who has filled in for Rendon at third the last two games, and Tyler Wade, who has played 38 games at third, including the five he started there for the Angels this season.
It has been a while since baseball fans, in general, have seen the Rendon that used to be a perennial MVP candidate and won the 2019 World Series with the Washington Nationals.
This latest setback guarantees they’ll have to wait another season to hopefully see that Rendon again.
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