By Matt Snyder Royals catcher Jason Kendall was trying to battle back from a shoulder injury until the results of an MRI came back Thursday. The news is probably career-ending. He has tears in two tendons in his right shoulder and will have surgery next Wednesday in Los Angeles. He's out for this season and likely all of 2012.
“That takes him out of the picture for this year and out of the picture for next year,” manager Ned Yost said (Kansas City Star). “I think it’s more a quality-of-life surgery so he can have function in his shoulder.”
At age 37, this probably means the end of Kendall's career. Yost stopped short of explicitly saying so, but it sounds like the end.
“They’re going to have to reattach those (tendons) to see if they hold this time,” Yost said (KC Star). “They didn’t hold last time. The odds of them holding this time, in a baseball setting, probably aren’t really good.”
Kendall is a three-time All-Star who has put together an admirable 15-year career. He's caught over 2,000 big-league games and amassed 2,195 career hits with a .288 average and .366 on-base percentage. He also had great speed for a catcher, stealing 189 bases. Oh, and he's also fifth in major-league history with 254 hit-by-pitches.
We obviously can't say Kendall's career is 100 percent concluded, but it will be a long road back.
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