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.

Eric Cole

Jun 11, 2024; San Diego, California, USA; San Diego Padres left fielder Jurickson Profar (center) is helped off the field by manager Mike Shildt (left) after sustaining an injury during the eighth inning against the Oakland Athletics at Petco Park. Mandatory Credit: Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports / Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports

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.

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Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.