Oregon St. catchers Andrew Susac and Jake Rodriguez both had surgery Monday to repair the broken hamate bone in their left hand. Surgery was a success in both cases.
Both broke their hamate bone, which is a small bone located at the base of the palm near the wrist and below the little finger. Rodriguez was hurt on March 27 and Susac hurt April 3, as they swung at high outside pitches, missed, and rolled the knob of the bat over the small bone and snapped it off.
Both will miss this weekend's games when Oregon St. travels to Palo Alto to face Stanford. Whether either player can come back later this season depends on the speed of recovery, and pain their tolerance.
It's not yet known how right handed reliever Taylor Starr is going to be. Starr, who removed himself from Sunday's game before facing a batter, will be evaluated by a doctor this week. Starr has missed the last two seasons, having had two "Tommy John" ligament replacement surgeries on his arm, but it isn't thought that the latest problem is related to that."I don’t know for sure if they can come back or not yet," Beavers' coach Pat Casey said. "We’ll see how they do."
"I can’t say much about Starr until I hear something more," Casey said, "but they don’t think it’s the same problem as before, which is great."
Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com