Nomar Garciaparra began the day by volunteering for a lineup demotion and ended it with a left groin injury that will put him out of action for an undetermined amount of time.
St. Louis Cardinals team physicians examined Garciaparra on Wednesday night, and he is likely to have an MRI on Thursday to determine the extent of the injury. He will be placed on the 15-day disabled list and could be out a month or more.
It was a painful day in a nightmarish April for Garciaparra, who signed a one-year, $8.25 million deal to return to the Cubs with the idea of getting a multiyear deal after the season.
Now his immediate future will be spent trying to rehabilitate himself into playing shape.
After moving into the No. 6 hole, Garciaparra injured himself running out of the batter’s box on a double-play grounder to short in the third. He took two steps out of the box and collapsed, writhing in pain. Garciaparra eventually was carried off the field.
Jerry Hairston Jr. replaced Garciaparra in the lineup, playing second while Neifi Perez moved to short.
Garciaparra had volunteered to move down in the order Wednesday because of his early-season slump.
Manager Dusty Baker responded by hitting him sixth for the opener of the two-game series in Busch Stadium.
“I didn’t ask him [for the move], I just told him it was OK,” Garciaparra said before the game. “I said ‘You make the decision. I’m not here to tell you where to put me. But if you’re feeling you don’t want to move me because I’ll feel one way or the other, or be hurt or sad or whatever, you’re not going to get that from me.’ “
Garciaparra came into the game hitting .163 and went 0-for-2 with an error. After going 0-for-5 Tuesday night, Garciaparra asked bench coach Dick Pole to tell Baker he was willing to move for the sake of the team.
“He said, ‘Hey man, I’m not helping us right now, and it wouldn’t hurt my feelings to help the club,’ ” Baker said. “I know he feels badly about not contributing, and I can tell it’s eating him up. He hasn’t struggled this much in a long time. … It was big of Nomar to say and do that. You find out a lot about a person when they’re going bad. He’s a heck of a dude.”
A couple of hours later, Baker watched helplessly as his shortstop went down in the heap. Garciaparra became the third injured Cub this year, following Joe Borowski and Todd Walker.
———-
Edited by Phillip Thompson (plthompson@tribune.com) and Martin Gee (mtgee@tribune.com)
