Alex Bregman left Sunday's game against the Cincinnati Reds after a foul ball struck him in the face while he was standing in the on-deck circle. That is the whole of the Chicago Cubs injury news at this hour, and it is enough to make every person in that ballpark go quiet.
I have watched a lot of baseball from a lot of angles. The on-deck circle is the spot I flinch at.
What happened to Alex Bregman
The reporting out of Cincinnati is short and it is the kind of short that tells you people were still gathering information when it went out. Bregman was on deck. A foul ball came off the bat and found him. He left the game. No diagnosis has come down that I have seen, no imaging, no timeline, nothing about how he walked off. I am not going to fill that space with guesses. When the club says something, that is when there is something to say.
What I will say is that the on-deck circle is a genuinely strange piece of real estate. A hitter is down there with a weighted bat, a pine tar rag, his eyes on the pitcher's release point or on his own hands, and roughly 90 feet of open air between him and a baseball leaving a bat at triple-digit exit velocity. The helmet is on. The flap covers an ear. Nothing covers a face.
Why the on-deck circle is still the ballpark's blind spot
When the game did its big safety rethink a few years back, extending protective netting down the lines in every park, the conversation was about fans. Rightly so. Kids in the front row had no chance on a screamer. But the netting starts where the seats start. The man kneeling in the dirt 30 feet up the line got none of it, and he is the only person on the field besides the catcher and the umpires who is regularly looking at something other than the ball in play.
Check the almanac and you find that guys do come back from this. Giancarlo Stanton took a fastball to the face in September 2014, suffered facial fractures, missed the rest of that season, and was in the Opening Day lineup the following spring wearing a protective flap on his helmet. That is not a prediction about Bregman, whose situation I know almost nothing about. It is just the reminder that the scariest moment in a ballpark is not always the worst outcome.
What this means for the Cubs down the stretch
Bregman is Chicago's third baseman, and he is the kind of professional hitter a lineup organizes itself around in September. Every at-bat behind him gets easier or harder depending on whether he is in the box. If he misses time, the Cubs have to redistribute a chunk of their best plate appearances to somebody else in the most unforgiving month on the calendar. That is the practical piece, and it can wait until there is a medical update to attach it to.
On the other side, the Reds had already handed out bad news Sunday, placing right-hander Chase Burns on the 15-day injured list with a right groin strain. The 23-year-old went 15-3 with a 2.86 ERA and made his first All-Star team this season. Losing that arm now is a real blow to a club that needs every quality start it can find.
| Sunday's news from the Cubs-Reds series | Detail |
|---|---|
| Alex Bregman, Cubs 3B | Left game, struck in face by foul ball in the on-deck circle |
| Chase Burns, Reds RHP | Placed on 15-day IL, right groin strain |
| Burns' season | 15-3, 2.86 ERA, first-time All-Star at 23 |
What I'm watching next
The club's first medical statement, and whether it includes the word imaging. That single word usually separates a long night from a long stretch. Everything else I could write right now would be me typing to fill space while a guy gets looked at by a doctor, and I would rather just wait with the rest of you.
Pull for him.