Cuddyer Staying Positive As He Endures 'Freak Injuries'
DENVER (CBS4) - Michael Cuddyer was smiling during most of his guest appearance on Xfinity Monday Live, despite the uncomfortable looking black sling on his left arm.
The two time All Star and Rockies utility player is out for at least another month after fracturing his left shoulder on June 5. Cuddyer usually plays first base or outfield, but the injury happened on a rare night when he was playing third base.
He said after the injury the "whole rest of the inning they kept hitting ground balls to me and I couldn't move my arm, I couldn't field it."
"I just had to get through that inning. That last at bat was probably the most painful at-bat I've had in my career," he told CBS4's Vic Lombardi.
It turned out to be a Glenoid fracture in Cuddyer's shoulder, and it's the second injury to take him away from the game this season. The first was a leg injury.
"It was actually the tendon that connects the hamstring to the calf," he said. "So it's freak injuries this year."
Cuddyer isn't the only big name player to go down for the Rockies. Carlos Gonzalez, Nolan Arenado, Tyler Chatwood, Brett Anderson and Boone Logan are all out with injuries right now, and all of those injuries happened within the same timeframe.
"To have that many quality players go down in that close together of a string? It's unprecedented," he said. "Hopefully we can continue to keep the ship afloat and continue to play well, get some wins and hopefully we're going to have a whole new team around the All-Star Break."
Cuddyer says missing this much baseball has been pretty difficult.
"Extremely bored," he said, describing his current inability to practice.
"Al least it was good watching the weekend series with San Francisco," he said, referring to the Rockies sweep of the Giants. "It made it a little easier."
Cuddyer says the fact that the Rockies are hovering around the .500 mark right now is a good sign.
"There's so much parity in Major League Baseball nowadays," he said. "I think you're going to see the second wild card team be right around .500 and get in. Maybe 83 or 84 wins.
"So as long as you can hang around there and get into September with a chance, then you just play good baseball and may the best team win after that."
Watch more video with Michael Cuddyer, including his thoughts on the death of Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, in the Xfinity Monday Live section.
