The Chicago White Sox will be without one of their top power threats these new few weeks. The ChiSox placed designated hitter Eloy Jiménez on the 10-day injured list with a low-grade left hamstring strain, the team announced Wednesday. They say Jiménez is expected to miss 2-3 weeks. Jake Burger was called up to fill the roster spot.
Jiménez suffered the injury running the bases in the seventh inning of Monday afternoon's home opener loss to the San Francisco Giants (SF 12, CWS 2). The injury is to his left hamstring, not the hamstring he had surgically repaired last August. Injuries limited Jiménez to only 139 of 324 possible regular season games from 2021-22, or 43%.
In an effort to keep Jiménez healthy (and also to limit the damage caused by his poor outfield defense), the White Sox have used him exclusively at DH in the early going this season. Andrew Benintendi and Luis Robert have started every game in left and center fields, respectively. Rookie Oscar Colás has started four of the team's five games in right field.
Jiménez, 26, was very productive around his injuries last season, slashing .295/.358/.500 with 16 home runs in 84 games. He is a .275/.327/.501 hitter who has averaged 36 home runs per 162 games in parts of five MLB seasons. Jiménez is in the fifth year of the six-year, $43 million contract he signed in March 2019, before he even made his MLB debut.
The 26-year-old Burger was the 11th overall pick in the 2017 draft. He made his MLB debut in 2021 and is a .252/.308/.461 hitter with nine home runs in 66 big league games. The White Sox are 2-3 in the early days of the 2023 season.
