ST. PETERSBURG -- The Royals gave Maikel Garcia rest and medicine last week with the hopes that they would silence the pain in his left hand.
They did not, so now the team is giving their third baseman a longer break.
Kansas City placed Garcia on the 10-day injured list with a left hand muscle strain prior to Tuesday’s game against Tampa Bay at Tropicana Field. In a corresponding move, utility infielder Josh Rojas was recalled from Triple-A Omaha.
Garcia sat out three games at the end of last week due to soreness, which he said he has been dealing with for about a month. The 26-year-old returned to the lineup on Sunday and Monday and served as the shortstop in both games, covering for the ailing Bobby Witt Jr. Garcia went 1-for-9 in those games. He will undergo more tests on his hand on Thursday in Kansas City.
“He's still in pain,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “It's something he's dealing with. And anybody that deals with pain in any way understands that it's something that kind of consumes you, and to go out and compete at the highest level with that, it's hard for him to do.
“We just weren't gaining any traction like we hoped we had.”
During Monday’s win, Garcia dropped to a knee in pain after fouling off a pitch in his first plate appearance. Though he stayed in the game, he has said that hitting foul balls exacerbates the pain in his left hand.
As he did when Garcia was manning shortstop the past two games, Nick Loftin started at third base again on Tuesday, with utility man Tyler Tolbert getting the nod at short in place of Witt, who missed his fourth straight game.
Witt (right knee sprain) went through on-field drills for the second straight day Tuesday, and Quatraro said he could have been available off the bench "in an extreme emergency" that night. But no scenario arose as Kansas City rolled to a 12-5 triumph.
Garcia’s soreness dates back to the Royals’ series in St. Louis from May 15-17. It happened on a swing in the second game. Imaging taken showed a strain of his lumbrical muscles, which are located in the hand and are responsible for fine motor control and dexterity.
While Garcia managed the pain, his performance took a hit at the plate. He was hitting just .227 in June with a .610 OPS and no home runs. Garcia, who broke out in 2025 with his first All-Star appearance and a Gold Glove Award, was carrying a 90 wRC+ in 2026. That means he was 10% below average in overall offensive production.
“My last homer was before St. Louis,” Garcia said. “After that, I’m not doing damage in the box and hitting. It’s not an excuse, but I’m not being myself. I’m trying to help my team, because we’ve been fighting, like all season, and I want to be part of winning and bring something to the team. Playing like that is hard to do. This game is hard to do [when you] play 100 percent. So you can imagine playing at 70 percent is harder.”
Rojas, 31, played two games earlier this month for Kansas City, going 1-for-5 with a double. The veteran of eight Major League seasons has slashed .251/.313/.445 in Triple-A this season while playing third base, second base and shortstop.
Rojas said prior to Tuesday’s game that he found out at 8 p.m. CT on Monday that he needed to rejoin the Royals in Florida. He got to the airport in Omaha very early this morning, which he said was “a good call” considering all of the people who were trying to make their way out of town following the conclusion of the Men’s College World Series.
“The TSA line was pretty packed,” Rojas said.
Rojas played shortstop for a couple of games with the Storm Chasers recently. He hasn’t manned that position at the MLB level since 2021, while with the D-backs. But given Witt’s injury, Rojas knows he may need to step into that spot in a pinch.
“It’s a mental thing playing short,” Rojas said. “You're going to have tougher plays. The game might speed up on you. I think that's the biggest challenge -- just playing the game the same way and not letting that deep play in the hole speed you up.”