Baseball players and modern medicine. They’re as intertwined as Doc Brown and Marty McFly. So every year, in this very space, we celebrate the latest batch of brilliantly creative ways that baseball players find to take their place in the Strange But True Injuries of the Year column.
Which means it’s time to thank this year’s group for playing with their kids … for just playing catch … for visiting their friendly neighborhood hot/cold tub … and for doing their best to get in and out of their favorite bathrooms without some major calamity ensuing.
None of those missions were actually accomplished. But you know what’s truly amazing? None of them even topped this list! We kid you not. So here they come, the Strangest But Truest Injuries of 2025.
First prize: Just add water
Poor Jose Miranda. There’s a million things he hasn’t done. But he’s now done this:
He’s the exalted 2025 grand-prize winner in our annual Injuries of the Year competition. And if that’s not an excuse to start scripting a major Tony Award-winning musical, what the heck is?
So you know who’s here to tell his story? Not his famous cousin, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Haven’t heard from him. So I guess the cast and chorus of the Strange But True Feats of the Year ensemble will just have to stand in. Wait for it!
OK, what did you miss in Jose’s riveting saga? Well, things were going great until the Twins sent him to their Triple-A team in St. Paul in April after an unfortunate base-running snafu went slightly too viral. And if he thought that was a rough development, he hadn’t even shopped at Target yet.
That happened only hours later, though. Miranda needed some stuff. So he went zipping through Target and reached for an innocent-looking case of bottled water, sitting enticingly on a nearby shelf. The goal there? Hydration! We recommend it highly, unless …
That case of water then slips out of your hands (that happened) … and you try to catch it (that also happened) … and you learn, the hard way, that those cases of water are heavier than they look (which is a thing that has happened to way too many of us).
Uh-oh. In retrospect, what Miranda should have done was sing out a chorus of “Say No to This.” Instead, his regrettable attempt to grab that plummeting collection of water bottles landed him on the injured list for the next four weeks with a strained left hand — after which he returned to hit .195 in Triple A. After which the Twins cut him loose to shop on his own.
So that wasn’t good. But hey, how lucky he is to be alive right now.
Second prize: Not so hot to trot
The good news for Pirates second baseman Nick Gonzales is, he hit the team’s first home run of the season on Opening Day.
The bad news is, everything else about that. Check out the most painful home run trot of 2025.
Yikes! Gonzales somehow fractured an (already sore) ankle somewhere in between that mighty swing and his grueling trip around the bases. So his next big-league at-bat didn’t arrive until June. No wonder Pittsburgh finished last in the major leagues in home runs. They’re dangerous!
Third prize: Bathroom breaks
Beware of bathrooms: Just ask Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. (Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
If I were running the Dodgers, I’d stop prioritizing spending a gazillion dollars on Japanese superstars and start working on making bathrooms safer.
You know who else might vote for that? I’m guessing Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman would be all in, because they both got hurt this year in a room that’s obviously more precarious than it looks.
In late May, Mookie fractured a toe in the darkness during a harrowing nighttime journey to the bathroom, missed four games, then announced: “I’m sure we all have some fractured toes from stuff like this.” Do we, though?
Meanwhile, Freeman couldn’t even make it through the first week of the season without his own bathroom fiasco. Here we always thought of this guy as the cleanest player in baseball. Next thing we knew, he was heading for the injured list after spraining his surgically repaired ankle with a dreaded “shower mishap.” Which he said was really a technical term for: slipping in the shower. Much to the amusement of his wife, Chelsea, apparently.
“Chelsea actually made the joke: ‘I thought I was going to deal with this when you’re 70, not when you’re 35,’” he reported.
Fourth prize: Rub a dub-dub, one man in a tub
Is there anything more hazardous to a baseball player’s health than that lovable liquid known to your favorite chemists as H2O? Not in 2025, apparently. First, Jose Miranda. Then Freddie Freeman. And now … let’s hear from Yimi García.
How did the Blue Jays reliever sprain his ankle in July? He was climbing into the hot/cold tubs at the ballpark in Toronto and, well, those things are slippery! If only he could take a trip back to July in his Hot Tub/Cold Tub Time Machine, I bet he’d be more careful next time.
Fifth prize: Head over heels
Then there was Marlins pitcher Ryan Weathers, who piled up more injuries than wins this year. But at least the flexor and lat strains that landed him on the injured list were normal pitcher stuff. This, on the other hand, doesn’t fit anybody’s definition of normal.
You ever seen this before?
Ryan Weathers makes his final warmup pitch of the first inning.
Nick Fortes’ throw down to 2B hits him in the head. pic.twitter.com/rIRvzGvqUv
— Fish On First (@FishOnFirst) June 7, 2025
I bet you thought there was nothing more harmless in baseball than a pitcher taking a quick stroll around the mound after finishing his warmup pitches? Ha. Poor Ryan Weathers couldn’t even make it through his pregame orbit of that mound, before a June 7 start against the Rays, when a toss to second base by catcher Nick Fortes conked him in the noggin.
On one hand, he somehow stayed in the game and pitched three innings that day. On the other hand, that just set him up to get hurt a second time in the same game — and he wound up missing the next three months with a strained lat. But hey, at least he didn’t slip in any showers or hot tubs.
Honorable mention
As always, there were so many innovative candidates for this list, we could have spun off three of these columns — and had enough leftover traffic to open our own urgent care outlet down at the mall. But here they come, the best of the runners-up.
Zack Littell strolled back into the Rays’ clubhouse after the All-Star break with a big bruise on his forehead. How’d that happen? Parenting, of course! He was chasing his son around the seemingly safe inflatable-slide park — and ran smack into the not-padded-for-parental-protection metal scaffolding lurking nearby. In case you were wondering, those things hurt!
Spencer Arrighetti was innocently playing catch in the outfield before an Astros game in April. So how’d that work out? You don’t want to know. He got drilled in the throwing hand by a line drive, broke his thumb and was out until August.
Matt Strahm was packing up his daughter’s toys before the Phillies headed north from spring training and suffered a packing malfunction, by jamming the cardboard between his nail and his finger. It amazes me every year how many dad jokes this column could potentially inspire.
Marc Topkin is a name you won’t find on Baseball Reference. But the legendary Rays beat writer for the Tampa Bay Times landed on this list anyway. He was making his daily midgame stroll to the clubhouse during spring training to talk to that day’s starting pitcher, when … oh no … he tripped on the sidewalk and broke his kneecap! So did he still hobble the rest of the way to the clubhouse and do that interview? Of course, he did. We scribes are warriors!
And, finally, this special alumni award goes to …
Mariano Rivera, who managed to rupture his Achilles in the Yankees’ Old-Timers Game. So if you’re keeping score, that one goes: Father Time 1, old-timers trying to relive their youth 0.
— Fabian Ardaya, Dan Hayes, Chandler Rome and Mitch Bannon contributed to this report. Plus a hat tip to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.