Just hours after agreeing to the largest contract in the history of the Pittsburgh Pirates, an eight-year, $70 million deal, Pirates’ third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes left their Opening Day game against the St. Louis Cardinals with a wrist/thumb injury:
Ke'Bryan Hayes injured his wrist on this play and had to exit the game a few batters later
He just signed the largest contract in Pirates history today pic.twitter.com/SKQc7ipDHf
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) April 7, 2022
As Robert Murray (who broke the news of Hayes’ contract earlier Thursday) noted, Hayes hasn’t even signed that contract yet, as it was pending a physical:
He has not signed the contract yet. It’s pending physical.
— Robert Murray (@ByRobertMurray) April 7, 2022
The 25-year-old Hayes (seen above last September) is in his third MLB season with the Pirates, but he hasn’t yet played 100 games in a season at the major-league level. He played in 24 games at the MLB level in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, hitting a remarkable .376/.442/.682 that year, and he played in 96 MLB games last year (he also played seven games at the Triple-A level in 2021). But he missed two months early on in 2021 after suffering a wrist injury in their second game and missed more time near the end of the season. And he saw his production decline significantly from June to July to August.
It’s unclear as of this point how serious this injury is, and if it might have any implications for the contract Hayes agreed to. We’ll have to wait and see what happens there. Hopefully this won’t be too much of a setback for Hayes.
Update: Murray later tweeted that Hayes left with “very minor” cramping, as per a source:
Sources: Pirates’ Ke’Bryan Hayes left the game with cramping in his left thumb/forearm, “Very minor,” one source said.
— Robert Murray (@ByRobertMurray) April 7, 2022
So Hayes may be back in the lineup quickly after all.
[Talkin’ Baseball on Twitter; photo from Eric Hartline/USA Today Sports]