Geraldo Perdomo Injury Update: Diamondbacks Shortstop Avoids Concussion Protocol After Scary Line Drive
Everyone at Daikin Park stopped breathing for a few minutes on Sunday.
Arizona Diamondbacks shortstop Geraldo Perdomo was hit in the helmet by a 93 mph line drive off the bat of teammate Ketel Marte in the third inning against the Houston Astros. Perdomo had just singled off Houston starter Peter Lambert and was standing on first when Marte hit the ball directly at him.
He went down and stayed down for several minutes while Marte stood in the background looking sick about it.
The outcome was better than it looked
Perdomo walked off the field under his own power, which was the first encouraging sign. He was replaced at shortstop in the bottom of the third by Ildemaro Vargas and left the game with a head contusion.
Manager Torey Lovullo said afterward that Perdomo “has not entered into the concussion protocol” and that the club felt it “dodged a bullet,” per Joshua Koch of MLB.com.
Avoiding concussion protocol after taking a 93 mph baseball off the helmet is close to a miracle. The helmet did its job.
Nobody is at fault and everybody feels awful
This is the worst kind of baseball injury because there is no villain. Marte hit a baseball hard, which is his job. Perdomo was standing where a baserunner stands, which is his job. The ball found him in the roughly four-tenths of a second a runner has to react.
Baserunners have almost no protection on plays like this. The helmet covers the head and that is it, and it is only there because a batter needs one. There is a real conversation to be had about whether infielders and runners need more, and it comes up every time one of these happens and then disappears within a week.
Where Arizona stands
The Diamondbacks won the series finale 3-2 and moved on to Kansas City for a Monday opener against the Royals at Kauffman Stadium. Whether Perdomo was cleared to play was still an open question.
The 26-year-old is batting .252/.359/.366 with nine home runs and 48 RBIs this season. That on-base percentage is the number that matters for Arizona, and the one-time All-Star has been the steadying presence in a lineup that needs one.
Arizona is fighting for a Wild Card spot with fewer than 20 games remaining. Losing a starting shortstop right now would be difficult to absorb.
The good news is that the worst version of Sunday did not happen. Sometimes that is the whole story.
Sources
- https://larrybrownsports.com/baseball/video-geraldo-perdomo-hit-head-98-mph-line-drive/769120
- https://www.mlb.com/dbacks/news/geraldo-perdomo-exits-after-being-hit-on-helmet-by-line-drive
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
