MILWAUKEE – All-Star shortstop Otto Lopez was not in the Marlins’ lineup for Sunday afternoon’s series finale against the Brewers at American Family Field with inflammation in his right ring finger.
His X-rays were negative and Lopez’s hand is considered day to day.
“He's sore today,” manager Clayton McCullough said. “There's still some swelling there in the nail area. … Hopefully some of that soreness gets out of there, and he's able to ramp up some more baseball activity.”
Lopez injured the finger on Saturday while attempting to field a second-inning grounder with a 98.9 mph exit velocity off the bat of Joey Ortiz. When the ball hopped up on Lopez, it caught him on the nail area and led to a fielding error.
The 27-year-old Lopez remained in the game, going hitless in his next three at-bats. He also committed another error.
“Checked in with him a couple times, watched him throw between innings,” McCullough said. “It was certainly bothering him. At least, probably, what he had the benefit of yesterday was still having some adrenaline of being in the game to probably mitigate some of the pain. You can tell it was affecting him swinging [with] some of the early one-handed kind of finishes.
“He said that he was OK to keep going, and figured that today he was going to be much more sore than he was yesterday. So, give him today, and I think we'll just play the next couple of days by ear with how, again, the inflammation and some of the tenderness in there, how quickly that dissipates.”
Lopez told MLB.com that his nail protected his finger, which was taped up on Sunday, from incurring more damage. It bothered him more trying to grip the bat than throwing. Ahead of Sunday’s game, Lopez played catch to test the finger.
Miami recalled Graham Pauley from Triple-A Jacksonville and optioned outfielder Rece Hinds to provide infield coverage in Lopez’s absence. Javier Sanoja started at shortstop in Lopez’s place for the series finale.
Entering Sunday, Lopez had started all but five of the Marlins’ 99 games this season. He continues to lead the Majors with 130 hits and a .335 average.