{"id":802595,"date":"2026-09-11T21:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T21:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/802595\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T21:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T21:03:18","slug":"pirates-rookie-esmerlyn-valdez-leaves-game-at-cubs-with-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/802595\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates rookie Esmerlyn Valdez leaves game at Cubs with injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-0a453225=\"\">CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 Pittsburgh rookie outfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/mlb\/esmerlyn-valdez-player\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Esmerlyn Valdez<\/a> left Friday&#8217;s game against the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/mlb\/chicago-cubs-team\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cubs<\/a> after injuring himself while running to first base on a grounder in the sixth inning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-0a453225=\"\">Valdez grabbed the back of his left leg and limped off the field with his arms draped around the shoulders of training staff after shortstop <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/mlb\/nico-hoerner-player\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nico Hoerner<\/a> threw him out. He was replaced in right field by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/mlb\/billy-cook-player\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Billy Cook<\/a>, who misjudged <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/mlb\/seiya-suzuki-player\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Seiya Suzuki&#8217;s<\/a> fly ball on the first play in the bottom half of the inning and allowed it to fall for a triple.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-0a453225=\"\">Valdez entered batting .235 with 17 homers and 47 RBIs in 71 games. The 22-year-old made his major league debut on May 22 at Toronto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 Pittsburgh rookie outfielder Esmerlyn Valdez left Friday&#8217;s game against the Cubs after injuring himself while&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2402],"tags":[5,24910,24,55483,19,4,33,10,776,64,4297,105],"class_list":["post-802595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-baseball","tag-billy-cook","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-esmerlyn-valdez","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-nico-hoerner","tag-pirates","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-pittsburghpirates","tag-seiya-suzuki"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117254435848590040","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}