It is truly insane how hot Yermín Mercedes was last April with the White Sox. A ridiculous .415/.455/.659 slash line, during the first month of the season that put him in the same stratosphere as Mike Trout, J.D. Martinez and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in offensive production. Unfortunately for Mercedes, things haven’t been all too good since then and now he has to undergo hand surgery that will keep him out 6-8 weeks.
On Friday, the White Sox announced that Mercedes will have surgery on his left hand next week and if the team needs a spot on the 40-man roster then the right-handed hitter might be placed on the 60-day injured list once Opening Day arrives.
A CT scan today confirmed that Yermín Mercedes has a hamate fracture in his left hand. He is scheduled for surgery with hand specialist Dr. Jason Le on Monday at 6:30 a.m. AZT in the Phoenix area.
Projected recovery time is 6-8 weeks.— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) March 25, 2022
Following his amazing start to the 2021 season, Mercedes only slashed .196/.264/.272, with two home runs in 174 plate appearances. In the midst of his early struggles in May, Mercedes was thrown at in Minnesota a day after he hit a home run on a 3-0 pitch when the White Sox were leading 15-4 in the ninth inning. White Sox manager Tony La Russa said he was disappointed that Mercedes swung in that situation and also said he had no issues with the Twins throwing at Mercedes the next game.
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Some fans point to that moment as the start of Mercedes’ decline, but again he was already struggling through the first 2.5 weeks of May. Did it hurt his confidence? That could certainly be debated. Mercedes could not get back on track and was eventually optioned to Triple-A at the start of July and was not called up again for the rest of the season.
And while the highs were high and the lows were low, Mercedes also had a bizarre couple of days when he was in Triple-A. Three weeks after he was sent down to Charlotte, Mercedes posted on Instagram that he was stepping away from baseball for a while, but then returned to the team the very next day.
Overall in 2021, Mercedes hit .271/.327/.402 with seven home runs 69 games for the White Sox, while slashing .275/.318/.464 in 59 games at Triple-A.
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