<\/p>\n
Since making the Kansas City Royals\u2019 roster out of spring training in 2022, Bobby Witt Jr. has not needed a trip to the injured list.<\/p>\n
Though the two-time All-Star shortstop missed his first game of the season Friday against the St. Louis Cardinals due to a Grade 1 MCL sprain in his right knee, the Royals are optimistic Witt will maintain his streak of avoiding the IL.<\/p>\n
The Royals and St. Louis Cardinals had the day off Saturday because Ecuador and Curacao met in a night game at nearby Arrowhead Stadium. That means Witt gets an extra day to rehab before the Royals need to map out his immediate future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll re-evaluate for a timeline on Sunday,\u201d Royals manager Matt Quartaro said Friday. \u201cWe\u2019re pretty optimistic. It\u2019s not a surgical thing. I know they can put a brace on it. It will be a lot of, \u2018Get the swelling out of there.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Witt injured the knee Thursday night when he went into the hole to backhand a hard-hit bouncer by the Cardinals\u2019 Jordan Walker. Witt stopped the ball, but he couldn\u2019t make a throw after landing on his right knee and injuring himself while trying to spin and get a forceout at second.<\/p>\n
The Royals removed him from that game, then Witt sat out Friday\u2019s 6-5 win against the Cardinals for his first time out of the lineup since Sept. 8, 2025. It marked just the 23rd game Witt missed since arriving in the bigs.<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old has played an average of 156.5 games in each of his four full MLB seasons<\/p>\n
Witt leads all American League players with a 4.3 Wins Above Replacement as he has racked up a .294\/.368\/.465 slash line with 10 homers and a MLB-high 28 stolen bases in 76 games. He comfortably leads all A.L. shortstops in early All-Star voting, making his third consecutive appearance in the game likely.<\/p>\n
He also has won two Gold Gloves and a Platinum Glove. Though Witt leads the major leagues in defense with a 16.4 rating per Fangraphs, the Royals didn\u2019t miss a beat Friday as Tyler Tolbert played a clean shortstop and drove in a run with a sacrifice fly from the No. 9 spot.<\/p>\n
Tolbert also played a key role in MLB\u2019s defensive play of the day in the eighth inning. Second baseman Michael Massey dove to the shortstop side of second to make a backhand grab of Ivan Herrera\u2019s hard grounder. He flipped it with his glove to Tolbert, who spun and fired to first baseman Jac Caglianone for the out.<\/p>\n
Tolbert figures to stay at shortstop for as long as the Royals need him. Quatraro hopes that need ends today when the Royals host the Cardinals for their series finale.<\/p>\n
\u201c(An IL stint) is always a possibility, but I wouldn\u2019t say \u2018strong,\u2019 \u201d Quatraro said. \u201cThere\u2019s no reason to handicap it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.newstribune.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since making the Kansas City Royals\u2019 roster out of spring training in 2022, Bobby Witt Jr. has not needed a trip to the injured list. Though the two-time All-Star shortstop missed his first game of the season Friday against the St. Louis Cardinals due to a Grade 1 MCL sprain in his right knee, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2469829,"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":[],"class_list":["post-2469828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Royals-looking-for-Witt-Jr-to-make-quick-return.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2469828","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=2469828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2469828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2469830,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2469828\/revisions\/2469830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2469829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2469828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2469828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2469828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}