Nationals all star third baseman Ryan Zimmerman is scheduled for surgery Tuesday to repair an abdominal tear. Performing the surgery will be Dr. Bill Meyers and the expected recovery time is approximately 6 weeks.
Zimmerman was originally placed on the DL on April 12th and was made retroactive back to April 10th. At the time of his being placed on the DL the injury was labeled as being an abdominal strain and was not expected to keep him out for long.
However after a couple weeks of rehab and a setback early last week they decided to have him see Dr. Meyers and it was announced yesterday that he has an isolated tear of the rectus muscle in the abdomen.
The Nationals who have struggled so far this season at the plate have missed having Zimmerman’s bat in the lineup and will have to look to veteran such as Werth and LaRoche to help carry the team in his absence.
On losing Ryan Zimmerman for an additional 6 more weeks Nats manager Jim Riggleman said “When you take your best hitter out of the lineup, you have to find different ways to score runs,”. He then went on to say “Nobody’s going to feel sorry for us. He’s a huge part of our ballclub, but we’re going to have to find ways to win games without him.”
The Nationals are 9 and 8 without him this season but for them to continue to stay around the .500 mark without him they are going to have to starting hitting more consistently than what they have so far.
The next 6 weeks could be a big test for the Nats and it should be interesting to see how they respond.