Royals' Rios frustrated after getting hit by pitch from Twins' Graham
MINNEAPOLIS -- Twins rookie pitcher J.R. Graham's Target Field debut didn't go according to plan, and a Royals player is now on the disabled list as a result.
Graham hit Kansas City's Alex Rios in the hand in the eighth inning of Monday's home opener. Rios wound up suffering a non-displaced fracture of the fifth metacarpal in his left hand and was placed on the 15-day disabled list Tuesday. Before Wednesday's game, Rios was not particularly happy with the way things unfolded.
"It's frustrating when you get inexperienced pitchers coming to the mound showing a lot of energy and not being able to control their emotions," Rios said. "I think that's a recipe for disaster, when you have high-energy guys without being able to control their emotions. And then you put them in high-pressure situations and they just don't know what to do and things like this happen.
"So it's very frustrating and I think that teams need to assess these kinds of things in a better way; they have to understand if somebody is ready to be in these kinds of situations or even here," Rios added. "I think controlling your emotions in baseball is a key to success."
Rios was the first batter Graham faced with the bases loaded in the eighth inning and the Royals leading, 5-3. Though it didn't appear Graham -- a Rule 5 pick by the Twins this past December -- intentionally tried to hit Rios, it was a scary moment as Graham's pitch sailed near Rios' head. Rios reacted in time but still got his hand in the way.
Though Rios took his base and finished out the top of the eighth inning, he was replaced in right field by Jarrod Dyson in the bottom of the inning.
"I felt bad for Rios," Twins manager Paul Molitor said Wednesday. "It's not a situation where we were even thinking about doing something like that. It was just a young kid trying to do too much. But you hate to see someone get hurt."
Rios, in his first season with the Royals after spending last year with Texas, is expected to miss three to six weeks.
"I'm going to do my best to do what I can to shorten up the time," Rios said. "It's going to depend on the bone itself, but I'm going to work on everything that I can to help the healing process a little more and speed up that process."
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