Editor’s note: The following was originally published to r/whitesox by the author, Peter Duckett. The Sox On 35th editorial staff has worked with Peter to format this for our website.
Any baseball fan who is paying attention knows that the White Sox have fallen victim to a litany of injuries during the last year. Yasmani Grandal, Tim Anderson, Yoan Moncada, Luis Robert, Eloy Jimenez, Andrew Vaughn, Lance Lynn, Lucas Giolito, Garrett Crochet, and Liam Hendriks have all missed extended time this season, with Dylan Cease and José Abreu as the only two stars who have avoided the IL.
Every time the team seems to be getting back to full health, another key player gets injured, and I don’t feel as though I’m going out on a limb by saying that it’s been a bad time. Hopefully, everyone can stay healthy as the second half progresses. I’d say we should knock on wood, but if any of our players did that, they’d probably break a hand.
I needed to spend a few hours recently actively avoiding important tasks, and I felt it would be interesting to quantify just how much the team has been injured over the last 365 days.
For this, parameters needed to be set, and since the 2022 Chicago White Sox seems to be mostly made up of human beings, I decided to use regional human anatomy as a guide to distinguish different areas of the body in which members of the team could injure themselves. If you’ve taken an upper-level course on regional human anatomy, you should be ashamed of your bad decisions. If you haven’t, here’s a basic breakdown:
The human body is made up of two major portions: The first is the axial body, which refers to the center of the body (essentially, everything except the limbs) and can be divided into four main regions: The head/neck, the thorax, the abdomen/pelvis, and the back.
The second major portion of the human body is the appendicular body, a term that encompasses the two upper limbs and two lower limbs. Both respective upper limbs can be further divided into three main regions each: the shoulder/upper arm, the elbow/forearm, and the wrist/hand. Both lower limbs can also be divided into three main regions each: the hip/thigh, the knee/lower leg, and the foot/ankle).
Using this super basic regional anatomy, we can identify a total of 16 main regions of the human body, and can thereby identify how much of the human body has been injured cumulatively by the White Sox over the past year. I’ve split up each of the team’s injuries over that timeframe and sorted them by region of injury, just in case any self-flagellating White Sox fan wants like reliving old bad memories. If I were you, though, I’d just trust me when I tell you that:
TL;DR: This team has accumulated a total of 54 injuries and 32 IL placements over the past fiscal year, averaging one injury every three games and one move to IL about every five games. We’ve injured four right hands, three upper arms, two shoulders, and an index finger. We’ve strained four right hamstrings, three left hamstrings, three groins, two abdominal muscles, and a latissimus dorsi. We’ve torn an ACL, a UCL, and two knee tendons.
Including Tim Anderson’s ligament tear in his left hand, the 2022 White Sox have now had injuries in every single region of the human body over the past 365 days. This team avoids injuries like I avoid lactose. Time for some Häagen-Dazs.
Luis Robert was designated as day-to-day with lightheadedness on July 15th (I’m counting this as a head injury and you can all bite me). Leury Garcia was placed on the 7-day IL with a concussion on August 15th, 2021.
Thorax (the superior section of the trunk located between the neck and the diaphragm)
Eloy Jiménez was on the IL at this time last year after rupturing his left pectoral tendon.
Abdomen and pelvis (the distal section of the trunk located between the thorax and the hips)
Leury Garcia was designated as day-to-day with left side discomfort on June 18th. Vince Velasquez was placed on the 15-day IL with a left groin strain on June 3rd. Tim Anderson was placed on the 10-day IL with a right groin strain on May 31st. Lucas Giolito was placed on the 10-day IL with an abdominal strain on April 8th. Yoán Moncada was placed on the 10-day IL with an oblique strain on April 4th. Adam Engel was designated as day-to-day with right groin tightness on August 12, 2021.
- Honorable mention: Billy Hamilton was placed on the 10-day IL with a right oblique strain on August 1st, 2021 while a member of the Chicago White Sox, but is no longer on the roster.
Back (on the posterior of the body, between the neck and gluteal regions)
Yasmani Grandal was placed on the 10-day IL with lower back spasms on June 13th. Aaron Bummer was placed on the 15-day IL with a left lat strain on June 12th. Josh Harrison was designated as day-to-day with a back injury on April 13th. Johnathan Stiever was placed on the 60-day IL with a right lat injury on March 24th. Andrew Vaughn was placed on the 10-day IL with lower back inflammation on September 14th, 2021.
- Honorable mention: Brian Goodwin was placed on the 10-day IL with lower back spasms on September 26th, 2021 while a member of the Chicago White Sox, but is no longer on the roster.
Left shoulder/upper arm:
Adam Engel was placed on the 10-day IL with left shoulder inflammation on August 16th, 2021.
- Honorable mention: Carlos Rodon was placed on the 10-day IL with left shoulder fatigue on August 8th, 2021 while a member of the Chicago White Sox, but is no longer on the roster.
Left elbow/forearm:
Garrett Crochet was placed on the 60-day IL with a partial left UCL tear (requiring Tommy John surgery) on April 7th.
Left wrist/hand:
Tim Anderson was placed on the 10-day IL with a sagittal band tear on the middle finger of his left hand on August 9th.
- Honorable mention: Yermín Mercedes was placed on the 10-day IL with a left hamate fracture on April 4th while a member of the Chicago White Sox, but as he is no longer on the roster I am choosing not to count it
Right shoulder/upper arm:
Josh Harrison was designated as day-to-day with a right triceps injury on June 23rd and was also designated as day-to-day with a right shoulder injury on April 20th. Joe Kelly was placed on the 10-day IL with a right bicep injury on April 7th. Dylan Cease was designated as day-to-day with a right triceps contusion on September 24th, 2021.
- Honorable mention: Ryan Burr was placed on the 10-day IL with a right shoulder strain on April 4th while a member of the Chicago White Sox, but is no longer on the roster.
Right elbow/forearm:
Kyle Crick was placed on the 15-day IL with right elbow inflammation on June 14th. Liam Hendriks was placed on the 15-day IL with a right forearm strain on June 11th.
- Honorable mention: Evan Marshall was placed on the 60-day IL with a right flexor pronator strain on July 29th, 2021 while a member of the Chicago White Sox, but is no longer on the roster.
Right wrist/hand:
Vince Velasquez was placed on the 15-day IL with a right index finger injury on July 6th. Jake Burger was placed on the 10-day IL with a right-hand injury on July 6. He was also designated as day-to-day with a right-hand injury on June 13th and was placed on the IL with a bone bruise in his right hand on August 4th, 2021. Andrew Vaughn was placed on the 10-day injured list with a bruised right hand on May 2nd.
- Honorable mention: Ryan Tepera was placed on the 10-day IL with a right index finger laceration on September 14th, 2021 while a member of the Chicago White Sox, but is no longer on the roster.
Left hip/thigh:
Yoán Moncada left a game with tightness in his left hamstring on June 17th. Yasmani Grandal was designated as day-to-day with a left hamstring injury on June 11th. Yoán Moncada was designated as day-to-day with a left quad injury on May 28th. Joe Kelly was placed on the 15-day IL with a left hamstring strain on May 26th. Lucas Giolito was placed on the 10-day IL with a left hamstring strain on September 3rd, 2021. Tim Anderson was placed on the 10-day IL with a left hamstring strain on August 30th, 2021.
Left knee/lower leg:
Yasmani Grandal left the game with a strained left calf on July 5th, 2021. Additionally, at this time in 2021, Yasmani Grandal was on the IL with a torn left knee tendon.
Left foot/ankle:
Jake Burger was designated as day-to-day with left ankle discomfort on May 27th. Eloy Jiménez was designated as day-to-day with a left ankle injury on April 13th.
Right hip/thigh:
Adam Engel was placed on the 10-day IL with a right hamstring strain on June 23nd. Yoán Moncada was placed on the 10-day IL with a right hamstring strain on June 17th. Eloy Jiménez was placed on the 60-day IL with a right hamstring strain on April 24th. Jiménez was also designated as day-to-day with right leg soreness on May 28th and was recently designated as day-to-day with right leg tightness on July 13th. AJ Pollock was placed on the 10-day IL with a right hamstring strain on April 9th and on the 10-day injured list with a right hamstring strain on September 5th, 2021 (while a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers). Andrew Vaughn was diagnosed with a right hip pointer during spring training on March 28th. Additionally, Luis Robert was on the IL with an injured right hip at this time in 2021.
Right knee/lower leg:
Danny Mendick was placed on the 60-day IL with a torn right knee ACL on June 22nd. Michael Kopech was designated as day-to-day with a right knee injury on June 12th. Aaron Bummer was placed on the 15-day IL with a right knee strain on May 9th. Lance Lynn was placed on the 60-day IL with a torn tendon in his right knee on April 7th and was also placed on the 10-day IL with right knee inflammation on August 29th, 2021. Eloy Jiménez was designated as day-to-day with a right knee contusion on September 7th, 2021.
Right foot/ankle:
Yoán Moncada was designated as day-to-day with a right foot injury on July 6th. Leury Garcia was designated as day-to-day with a right ankle injury on May 11th.
Peter can be found on Reddit at /u/therealpetewheeler, soon to be moving over to /u/PeterDuckett. He can also be found at @employedvagrant on Twitter.
Featured Photo: Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports
