After playing though pain, Rojas set for wrist surgery

MIAMI -- Marlins shortstop Miguel Rojas' season will end a game early, as he will undergo a debridement of his right wrist to remove cartilage on Wednesday. Dr. Patrick Owens will perform the surgery in Miami. Rojas said the timing of the procedure was a combination of the doctor's availability and an effort to miss the least amount of games.

Rojas, who sustained the injury when his hand guard got caught as he slid into third base in the Marlins' second-half opener on July 21, has been managing the pain since. He woke up the following morning with his entire right arm sore. Rojas played the entirety of a three-game series in Pittsburgh, then took two days off during the ensuing series in Cincinnati because of how bad the pain became.

"The off-days that I got in the second half has been part of how the wrist is feeling, trying to stay on top of it," Rojas said. "If I feel good, if something made me feel bad -- the other day when I check swung in New York -- I felt something weird there. I got another X-ray, everything was fine."

The discomfort doesn't bother Rojas while throwing, and it's clear considering the Gold Glove-worthy defense he has displayed in 2022. Rojas entered Monday's series opener against the Braves with an MLB-best .989 fielding percentage among qualified shortstops. Before booting Ronald Acuña Jr.'s 105 mph leadoff grounder Monday, Rojas had gone 64 straight games at short without an error, a new single-season club record. Rojas also leads all MLB shortstops with 16 defensive runs saved and ranks fourth among National League shortstops with 11 outs above average.

The 33-year-old's offensive stats through 139 games are down nearly across the board, with his lowest marks since 2016 in several categories, including OPS+ (72).

"It was uncomfortable to hit with," Rojas said. "Like I said before, it's not something that I'm going to say that it was a problem for me to be productive on the field. I feel like there's no excuses for me to say, 'This was bothering me, that's why I had the numbers that I had,' or anything like that. I feel like the only thing that I felt hitting was sometimes when I check swung, it was like a sharp pain there. But it went away.

"So that's why I was able to actually play through it, because with a lot of tape, a lot of treatment and stuff like that, sometimes I came out of the games because maybe a check-swing I felt a click or something like that, and the pain was there for a little longer than just 20-30 seconds. But overall, I feel like it allows me to stay on the field, allows me to keep playing for the team, keep playing good defense. The only thing, my power numbers, I wasn't impacting the ball the same. My swing changed a little bit because of the discomfort I was feeling, I wasn't getting off my good swings. I found a way, like I always try to do, to stay on the field and play the rest of the year."

Rojas will be in a removable splint for four weeks. During that period, he can do finger and range-of-motion exercises -- but no twisting, per the doctor's orders. He expects to be healed in two or three months.

"I don't have to worry about getting back on the field as soon as possible," Rojas said. "I just want to make sure that I'm fully healthy. As soon as those three, four weeks approach, I'm going to start doing my lower-body activities and get back to my regular offseason routines. Looking forward to have a healthy offseason and come back next year strongest as possible."