White Sox: Jake Burger suffers horrible setback, re-tears Achilles
How will White Sox prospect Jake Burger respond to this latest career setback? Will his re-torn Achilles tendon heal in time to let him return to action in 2019?
Wow. The Chicago White Sox just can’t catch a break, can they?
They currently are tied for the second-worst record in baseball (9-24), on pace to finish under 50 wins for a season.
They currently are missing regular lineup contributors all over the place, including Avisail Garcia and burgeoning star second baseman Yoan Moncada. On top of that, several of their top prospects, like Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert, got late starts to the season due to injuries.
And they just found out that one of their other promising future stars just suffered a setback that could threaten to keep him out for until next summer at the least.
Infield prospect Jake Burger, who made a splash in his first few Spring Traning at-bats of 2018, re-tore the left Achilles that he had surgically repaired 10 weeks ago last week at his Arizona home.
Jake Burger re tore his Achilles at his Arizona home. Had a second repair and is back to square 1 on rehab losing the last 10 weeks of progress
— Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) May 9, 2018
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The tendon has been repaired a second time, and Burger is estimated to be out for another 12 months.
Ultimately, as Adam Hoge reported, the injury shouldn’t have any long-term effects on his career, in theory. There’s always the question of how long it will take him to return as the same player, assuming he does. But if he’s still on the 12-month timeline, he could still suit up next summer.
But unfortunately, this re-injury of the Achilles literally takes him back to square one with his rehab. All the progress that he made over the past 10 weeks? Toast with one bad step.
Which of course also begs the question: what was he doing exactly when he re-injured himself? Was it just an accident? Was he doing something rehab-related?
We probably won’t know the answer to that, but it’s still a bit worrisome.
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Anyway, one can only hope Burger can keep a third major leg injury at bay and eventually return to form. It would be cruel for the White Sox to put this operation together so well only to see injuries derail the whole thing.