The injury bug has officially landed in Brooklyn.
The Cyclones looked a bit like the big-league counterpart Mets last week as a handful of injuries picked apart the squad’s lineup.
Peter Zanon’s season ended on Aug. 9 after suffering a partial tear of the labrum. Zanon had been riding a recent wave of success on the basepaths, closing in on Angel Pagan’s stolen base record. The injury, however, kept the record in tact and shut Zanon down for the remainder of the summer.
Second-round pick Peter Alonso also suffered an injury on Aug. 9, leaving the game in the eighth inning after sliding into second base and jamming his pinky. Alonso — whose success at the plate led to a New York-Penn League All-Star nomination — did his best to bounce back from the play, but Cyclones skipper Tom Gamboa announced the first baseman would miss the rest of the season with a broken finger on Aug. 11.
“If it was gonna happen, at least it happened towards the end of the season,” Gamboa said. “[He] got a real good taste of what pro ball’s going to be like and [he] had a spectacular season with the glove, with the bat, driving in runs, making the All-Star team.”
Alonso played 30 games with the Cyclones — joining the squad after Florida’s run in the College World Series — and posted an impressive .321 batting average with five home runs, 21 runs batted in and 20 runs scored.
In 109 at bats, Alonso struck out just 22 times.
This isn’t Alonso’s first brush with injury this year. He sustained a small fracture in his left hand during the college season when he was drilled by a mid-90s fastball against Vanderbilt in May.
Meanwhile, Arnaldo Berrios nearly added his own name — or a teammate’s — to the list when he angrily flipped his bat towards the Cyclones dugout on Aug. 11.
Berrios was upset after being hit by a pitch in the matchup against the Vermont Lake Monsters and after taking his frustration out on his bat tossed it into the dugout. Gamboa wasn’t pleased with the move and while no Cyclones were hurt, the manager said he would speak to Berrios about the moment.
“He’s just coming off a knee injury and now he gets hit with a pitch in the ankle and you don’t have any meat to protect your ankle,” Gamboa said. “Any of us that have played, we’ve had that happen, it stings like hell.”
“He just got emotional but he didn’t realize on turf that bat is a weapon. It came right over the railing right into the dugout. I mean, he could’ve hurt a teammate, so we’ll talk about that.”
The Cyclones got a much-needed break with the All-Star game on Aug. 16 and head into the final stretch of the season three games out of first in the McNamara Division standings.
