Jurickson Profar's injury raises real concerns for Padres and struggling offense
The Padres' injury woes could get worse depending on how Profar is feeling after his lingering injury flared up.
Jurickson Profar's 2024 season has been one of the more delightful surprises for the San Diego Padres this year. Not only has he been one of the Padres' best hitters with a .324/..424/.500 line and 10 homers on the year, but he has also done so at the expense of a certain Dodgers catcher who decided to disrespect Profar for no reason. It has been tremendous.
Unfortunately, Profar's feel good story took a sour turn on Tuesday when Padres manager Mike Shildt pulled Profar early from their game against the A's in the eighth inning and later revealed that the emergent star is battling through some knee soreness at the moment.
Padres News: Jurickson Profar's knee injury threatens to derail breakout 2024 season
While it is a little weird to bemoan the loss of a guy who the Padres signed to a one-year deal in late February, Profar not being 100% is a pretty big deal for San Diego's offense. Just looking at the last 10 games, the Padres had the two offensive explosions against the Diamondbacks and scored six runs in the first game of this series, but have failed to score more than three runs in any of the other seven contests. When an inconsistent offense might lose their most consistent bat, that is cause for concern.
Right now, there isn't an indication that Profar is going to need an IL stint, although his knee giving out on a swing definitely didn't look great. Shildt's comments seemed to indicate that the training staff is on top of the injury, and that last night was just a night where it was bothering Profar more than usual while they continued to work on it.
However, if Profar were to need to miss some time, it could not only cost the Padres, but Profar as well, as he has a really strong case to make the NL All-Star team this year with the third best wRC+, fifth best fWAR, and second highest average amongst all qualified National League hitters. Hopefully the issue proves to be minor, and he gets back to punishing baseballs soon for everyone's sake.