It seems like just yesterday we were talking about some of the common and rare types of ankle sprains, and high ankle sprains made the list in the latter category. Hopefully we didn’t talk it into existence, because later that day Minnesota Twins catcher Mitch Garver suffered a high ankle sprain during a 4-3 win over the Los Angeles Angels.
Garver, who homered earlier in the game, suffered the injury in the 8th inning during a collision at home plate with Shohei Ohtani. You can see video of the play below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqL0khYnZp0
As we talked about in yesterday’s blog, high ankle sprains aren’t all that common due to the forces that must be present in order for the ligaments that connect your shin bone to your fibula to be stretched and injured. In yesterday’s post, we talked about how the injury is more common in football because it occurs when the foot is planted and then is exposed to a significant twisting force. You could see how this could happen to a running back who is being tackled, but it’s not all that common in baseball because contact between players is rare.
Unfortunately for Garver, he ended up being on the receiving end of a collision at home as Ohtani tried to score from third. As you can see in the video, Garver is planting his left leg as he goes to make the tag at the same time that Ohtani slides into his leg, causing an external rotation of the leg and knee. At the end of the video, you can see Garver needed to be helped off the field and had trouble bearing weight on the left foot.
Today, the team placed Garver on the injured list, meaning he’ll miss at least the next 10 days, but as we mentioned yesterday, time lost to high ankle sprains for athletes is typically measured in weeks, not days. Without knowing more about the injury, it seems likely that Garver could be expected to miss between 3-6 weeks with the injury, but that can change once swelling subsides and we get a better look at the extent of the ligament damage.
Here’s hoping Garver can make a speedy recovery and continue his breakout season for the first-place Twins.
