In the eighth inning of last night’s Tigers-Twins tilt in Detroit, Joe Mauer ripped a 104 mph liner directly into the lower leg of Tigers pitcher Alex Wilson. As you might expect, the sound of a 104 mph liner smashing off of an unprotected fibula is not especially pleasant!
Wilson hopped up and tried to walk it off—he even threw a practice pitch to test out the leg—before deciding the damage was too great to continue. And he wasn’t wrong! After the game Wilson was diagnosed with a non-displaced fracture of his right fibula, effectively ending his season.
Here is a deeply unappetizing description of those few moments after contact, from an ESPN report:
“Honestly, all I thought was that my foot was numb,’’ Wilson said after Detroit’s 10-4 loss. “At the time, all I really remember was talking to [second baseman Ian] Kinsler. He was telling me to slow down and take my time. He asked if I was going to throw a pitch, and I said, ‘Yeah.’ He told me again to take my time. So I backed off the mound again. I remember toeing the rubber. As soon as I got up on my backside to throw that pitch, I felt a shaky sensation, and when I drove, I felt a pop and the shooting pain.”
A pop and the shooting pain. Those were his bones grinding around in there, man.