As Alex Gordon paused between rounds of batting practice in Kansas City last weekend, he chatted about his circumstances: He is coming back from a serious muscle injury, at a time when the Kansas City Royals have an enormous lead in the AL Central.
Barring the greatest collapse in baseball history, the Royals are going to participate in the playoffs, and Gordon talked about how well the team is playing and what a strong position they are in. There is no reason for him to push to get back in the lineup sooner than he needs to, and so, he said, he is being careful because he’s fully aware of the history of setbacks among players who tried to come back from a groin strain too soon. If this happened to Gordon now, he would probably miss some games in October — maybe all of them.