The Arizona Diamondbacks confirmed Tuesday that Lourdes Gurriel Jr. tore his right anterior cruciate ligament in the outfield during their game against the Texas Rangers on Monday in Phoenix.
Gurriel, 31, was placed on the 10-day injured list for the time being, but he faces a lengthy recovery from an injury that often sidelines NFL players for around a year.
Arizona manager Torey Lovullo told reporters before the Tuesday game that Gurriel likely would require reconstructive surgery, though the team was gathering second opinions.
“He’s trying to understand why it happened and what the next several days, … weeks and months and potentially year will look like,” Lovullo said.
“I hurt for him and I could tell he was hurting. I told him that we’re going to be OK, because what we do here is we pick one another up. Don’t worry about what we’re doing, we’ve got you.”
The play occurred on the final out of the top of the sixth inning, when Texas’ Rowdy Tellez hit a line drive to left-center. Gurriel pursued the ball from his post in left field and rookie Blaze Alexander came at it from center.
Alexander made an athletic catch while Gurriel made an awkward leap out of Alexander’s path to avoid a collision. Gurriel stayed on the ground in obvious pain for several minutes and was eventually carted off the field.
An All-Star in 2023, Gurriel has split his eight-year major league career between the Toronto Blue Jays (2018-22) and Diamondbacks. He is a career .274 batter with 129 home runs and 491 RBIs in 875 games.
Through 129 games this season, Gurriel had 19 homers and 80 RBIs with a .248 batting average.
The Diamondbacks replaced Gurriel on the roster by calling up infielder Connor Kaiser from Triple-A Reno. Kaiser, 28, went 2-for-14 (.143) with two RBIs in five games for Arizona previously this year, all in August.
In other moves, Arizona optioned right-hander reliever Juan Burgos from Reno and called up right-handed reliever Taylor Rashi.
