A's rookie sensation's historic start cut short by freak injury

Nobody was talking about the Athletics this season for good reasons, and then Joshua Kuroda-Grauer showed up and made it impossible not to. Since his June 29 debut, the 23-year-old infielder has hit.417 with a 1.019 OPS, and through his first 16 big league games he racked up 25 hits, tied with Eddie Murphy's 1912 mark for the most in franchise history over that stretch. That's not a hot week. That's a rookie doing something no Athletic has done in over a century.

Codify

@CodifyBaseball

Joshua Kuroda-Grauer has had 25 hits in his first 16 big league games and no Athletic in all of history has had more!

Then Monday happened. In the fifth inning against the Diamondbacks, Kuroda-Grauer fouled a pitch directly into his own groin. Anyone who's played baseball knows that moment, the whole dugout wincing in sympathy. What made it a viral sensation instead of just a wince-and-move-on play was what he did next: he stayed in the box, worked the at-bat, and lined a single to center. He even trotted back out to third base before finally coming out of the game.

Jomboy Media

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"No balls and one strike" Joshua Kuroda-Grauer fouled a ball directly off his nuts, then recovered and got a base knock

The gutsy at-bat made for a great highlight, but it wasn't just a bruise. Kuroda-Grauer had suffered a ruptured testicle and needed emergency surgery, the kind of injury that sounds almost too brutal to be real until you watch the replay. In the span of one game he hit his first career home run, ruptured a testicle on a foul ball, and still notched career hit No. 25 for the record — reportedly all in that exact order.

Codify

@CodifyBaseball

Joshua Kuroda-Grauer in yesterday's game: 👉 hit his first big league home run 👉 suffered a ruptured testicle from a foul ball 👉 singled for his 25th hit in just 16 MLB games and he did it in that order.... 😮

On Tuesday, MLB Trade Rumors confirmed the fallout: the Athletics placed both Kuroda-Grauer and pitcher Mark Leiter Jr. on the injured list. What had been a feel-good, record-chasing storyline is now a real medical situation, and for a team with little else going right this season, losing its most electric rookie stings.

MLB Trade Rumors

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Athletics Place Mark Leiter Jr., Joshua Kuroda-Grauer On IL t.co/wCf12IkVB5

The recovery timeline isn't nothing, either. Comparable injuries have historically sidelined players for over a month, and for a rookie who was just settling into everyday at-bats and drawing Freddie Freeman handshakes at first base after his first career hit, extended time off is a real gut punch to the momentum he'd built. Fantasy managers who scooped him up off the wire are staring at a stash-or-drop decision, and the A's now have to figure out how to keep developing a potential building block without rushing him back.

For a franchise starved for storylines, Kuroda-Grauer's first three weeks were as good as it gets: a Rutgers third-round pick who led all of minor league baseball in hits last year showing up and immediately looking like the best hitter on the roster. The injury doesn't erase that. It just means the next chapter of the story is a rehab clock instead of a highlight reel, and everyone in Oakland is hoping it's a short one.