The Padres just took a real hit in the middle of a pennant race. Miguel Andujar is headed to the injured list with a fractured wrist, and it's the kind of move that looks small on a transactions page but stings a lot more when you look at what he's actually been doing this year.
MLB Trade Rumors broke the news that Andujar is landing on the IL with a fractured wrist.
This isn't some fringe bench guy nobody will miss. Andujar signed a modest 1-year, $4 million deal with San Diego over the winter, with an $8 million option for 2027 attached, and he's turned it into one of the best value contracts in baseball. He's hitting .290 with an .822 OPS this season and leads the Padres in both batting average and doubles with 11. With Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado both stuck in extended slumps at times this year, Andujar quietly became one of the more reliable bats in that lineup.
Reports indicate the injury happened when he was hit by a curveball late in a recent game in Kansas City against the Royals, and the wrist fracture is bad enough to require a stint on the 10-day IL. There's a silver lining, though: he reportedly won't need a cast, just a splint, and the Padres aren't treating this as season-ending. The expectation is a possible return sometime in August, pending re-evaluation in a couple weeks.
Still, losing a .290 hitter for even a few weeks in late July is a real dent for a team trying to hold position in a crowded NL. San Diego has already recalled a catcher to fill the open roster spot, but replacing Andujar's bat in the lineup isn't as simple as replacing a roster spot. Bench and infield depth get stress-tested exactly this way — an out-of-nowhere breakout gets hurt, and suddenly the manager is scrambling for at-bats.
For fantasy managers who scooped Andujar up as a late-season sleeper, this one hurts too — he'd quietly built himself into one of the better streaming infield options going. The Padres will be watching that wrist closely, because if this stretches beyond the optimistic August timeline, it becomes a much bigger problem for a lineup that can't afford to lose more production down the stretch.