The Kansas City Royals have placed All-Star third baseman Maikel Garcia on the 10-day injured list.
Garcia has a strained muscle in his left hand. It’s a peculiar injury that only affects him when he is at the plate; he doesn’t feel pain when making solid contact.
The injury stems from taking awkward swings and fouling off baseballs. The irritation is caused by inflamed muscles near the top of his left hand.
In recent days, Garcia has received constant treatment. He missed three games before returning to the lineup Sunday against the St. Louis Cardinals.
He was in the lineup on Monday, as well. He filled in at shortstop with superstar Bobby Witt Jr. sidelined by a Grade 1 MCL strain in his knee.
Garcia finished 1-for-4 against the Rays. He had a first-inning double and made several key defensive plays.
But now he becomes the latest Royal to hit the injured list. Garcia joins Vinnie Pasquantino, Kyle Isbel, Cole Ragans, Kris Bubic, Carlos Estévez, Nick Mears and Jonathan India as KC players who are currently on the shelf.
The Royals mulled placing Garcia on the injured list last week. At that time, they opted to give him a few rest days to see if the pain might subside.
“I mean, we kind of set the goal of giving him those three or four days off and see if he could respond to it,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “… We were hoping that if the medicine kicked in and took the pain away and the rest helped a little bit.— we were hopeful for that. But it didn’t happen that way. He’s still in pain.”
Garcia recently noted it’s tough to play at less than full strength.
“This game is hard to do playing 100%,” he said last week. “So you can imagine playing like 70% is harder.”
The Royals never took an IL stint off the table. On Tuesday, they made the difficult decision. On the bright side, Garcia now will have time to treat the injury.
“Anybody that deals with pain in any way understands that it’s something that kind of consumes you,” Quatraro said. “And to go out and compete at the highest level with that kind of (pain), you know, it’s hard for him to do.”
In a corresponding move, the Royals recalled infielder Josh Rojas from Triple-A Omaha. He’s a major-league veteran who has played in two MLB games this season.
“I’m pretty comfortable,” Rojas said. “Just waiting to get into the game and try to help the team win a game. It’s the same game I’ve been playing, you know, the last 10 years. So yeah, I’m excited to get back out there.”
This story was originally published June 23, 2026 at 1:52 PM.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.kansascity.com ’
