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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City's Salvador Perez injured his left leg when third baseman Cheslor Cuthbert collided with him in the ninth inning of Saturday's 8-7 win over the Chicago White Sox, and the All-Star catcher needed to be helped off the field.
Perez was taken for a MRI, and the extent of his injury was not announced. The preliminary diagnosis was a bruised left thigh.
"Now it's a waiting game," Eric Hosmer said after the Royals rallied for seven runs in the ninth. "We won the game today, but that will be the more important win if we find out nothing serious with him happened. Salvy is our guy. He's the leader of this team. He's an All-Star. He's everything. When you see a guy like that goes down, it fires you up. You want to pick up the pace cause you've got to pick him up."
Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas and left fielder Alex Gordon collided last Sunday while chasing a foul ball at Chicago, and both were put on the disabled list. Gordon has a broken right wrist and is out for three-to-four weeks; Moustakas tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee and likely is out for the season.
"You're always nervous, especially when you lose two All-Stars, you don't want to lose a third," manager Ned Yost said.
Perez was hurt when Cuthbert slid with a forearm and elbow into his left thigh. Perez had called off Chien-Ming Wang, settled under Adam Eaton's foul popup about 30 feet from the plate near the third-base line and snagged the ball just before he was hit.
Perez immediately raised his right arm, signaling for assistance. Two minutes later, Perez hobbled off the field with his arms draped over the shoulders of Yost and head athletic trainer Nick Kenney.
"The good thing about it, at least as far as we could tell, there was no structural damage to his knee," Yost said. "So, that was what I was worried about. He sustained a pretty good quad contusion. Cheslor suffered a mild quad contusion, when they hit."
Still, Perez could be sidelined for a stretch if there is a lot of blood in the quadriceps.
"That wouldn't have happened with Moose, because they've played together so long," Yost said. "Moose knows what Salvy's capabilities are and Ches just put his head down and came hard."
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