{"id":2467824,"date":"2026-06-20T01:23:57","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T01:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2467824"},"modified":"2026-06-20T01:23:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T01:23:57","slug":"bobby-witt-jr-injury-update-royals-shortstop-has-grade-1-mcl-sprain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/bobby-witt-jr-injury-update-royals-shortstop-has-grade-1-mcl-sprain\/","title":{"rendered":"Bobby Witt Jr. injury update: Royals shortstop has Grade 1 MCL sprain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Bobby Witt Jr., the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/baseball\/mlb\/teams\/kansas-city-royals\/231\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Kansas City Royals;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Kansas City Royals&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Kansas City Royals<\/a>&#8216; franchise player and two-time All-Star shortstop, suffered a Grade 1 sprain of the medial collateral ligament in his right knee, manager Matt Quatraro told reporters in Kansas City.<\/p>\n<p>Witt will not play in the team&#8217;s game Friday, June 19 against the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/baseball\/mlb\/teams\/st-louis-cardinals\/248\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:St. Louis Cardinals;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;St. Louis Cardinals&quot;}\" class=\"link \">St. Louis Cardinals<\/a> and, with the club off Saturday, he will be reevaluated Sunday, Quatraro said. While Witt seemed to avoid more severe injury, Quatraro acknowledged a stint on the injured list is a possibility.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s not a surgical thing,&#8221; Quatraro said, per MLB.com. &#8220;It\u2019s going to be a lot of get the swelling out of there and understand how he feels. And those conversations are going to have to be honest between all of us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Witt injured the knee fielding an infield single in the top of the fourth inning Thursday, June 18 against St. Louis at Kansas City&#8217;s Kauffman Stadium. He stayed in the game but the Royals pinch-hit for their best player in the bottom of the inning and announced <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/royals-star-bobby-witt-jr-024609365.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:he was removed due to right knee discomfort;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;he was removed due to right knee discomfort&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\">he was removed due to right knee discomfort<\/a>. He underwent further imaging on the knee.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"content-figure\">\n<div class=\"content-image\"><button aria-label=\"View larger image\" class=\"lightbox-btn\" data-ylk=\"elm:expand;itc:1;sec:image-lightbox;slk:lightbox-open;\"><span class=\"lightbox-expand\"><svg viewbox=\"0 0 22 22\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"size-4 lg:size-6\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\"><path d=\"M12.372.92c0-.506.41-.916.915-.916L21 0l-.004 7.712a.917.917 0 0 1-1.832 0V3.183l-6.827 6.828-1.349-1.348 6.828-6.828h-4.529a.915.915 0 0 1-.915-.915M1.835 17.816l6.828-6.828 1.349 1.349-6.829 6.827h4.529a.915.915 0 0 1 0 1.831L0 21l.004-7.713a.916.916 0 0 1 1.831 0z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/button><dialog aria-label=\"Image lightbox\" class=\"lightbox-overlay\" aria-modal=\"true\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"fig-caption\">\n<p>Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. rolls over after injuring his knee in the fourth inning against the St. Louis Cardinals on June 18.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On his way to a third consecutive All-Star appearance, Witt, 26, leads the major leagues with 28 stolen bases, and is batting .290 with nine homers and an .815 OPS. He has won the past two American League Gold Gloves at shortstop.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Witt, whose 4.2 WAR is tied for first among AL players, is in the third year of an 11-year, $288 million contract, although he can opt out of the deal between 2031 and 2034. The Royals entered play Friday, June 19 with a 31-45 record and in fourth place in the AL Central.<\/p>\n<p><em>This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/mlb\/royals\/2026\/06\/19\/bobby-witt-jr-injury-update-royals\/90619062007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Bobby Witt Jr injury update: Royals star's knee is diagnosed;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Bobby Witt Jr injury update&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Bobby Witt Jr injury update: Royals star&#8217;s knee is diagnosed<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source uk.sports.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bobby Witt Jr., the Kansas City Royals&#8216; franchise player and two-time All-Star shortstop, suffered a Grade 1 sprain of the medial collateral ligament in his right knee, manager Matt Quatraro told reporters in Kansas City. Witt will not play in the team&#8217;s game Friday, June 19 against the St. Louis Cardinals and, with the club [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2467825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[319690,485505,485504,310650,43627,485188,311274,485503,349062,357714,52318],"class_list":["post-2467824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-bobby-witt","tag-franchise-player","tag-grade-1-sprain","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-knee-discomfort","tag-matt-quatraro","tag-medial-collateral-ligament","tag-quatraro","tag-st-louis-cardinals","tag-st-louis"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Bobby-Witt-Jr-injury-update-Royals-shortstop-has-Grade-1.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2467824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2467824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2467824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2467826,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2467824\/revisions\/2467826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2467825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2467824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2467824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2467824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}