Whew.
When David Ross described Willson Contreras’s ankle situation as “one step forward, two steps back,” and added that some scans were coming, it was fair to be worried that it could be worse than your run-of-the-mill ankle sprain. And it was hard not to think about the MONTH that he was permitted to keep playing on the thing, wondering whether it made things much worse.
But, as the title and the ‘whew’ suggest, the imagine did not reveal any major structural concerns.
Contreras underwent an MRI on Wednesday, which revealed “no surprises,” the Cubs said. The results were consistent with his diagnosis of a sprained left ankle.
He’ll continue to rest the ankle and receive treatment. He played catch on the field before Thursday’s game against the Reds and said, “I feel better.”
“We’ll continue the same path it’s been on,” manager David Ross said. “[With what] the setbacks were, we want to make sure we’re not doing anything that is going to cause any further harm and make sure there’s no real problem in there …. All good news. He was excited. We were excited. Making sure he’s healthy and just getting all the way back where the ankle feels strong enough that he can go out and compete without thinking about it.”
Contreras, 30, is a free agent after the season, and may not ultimately return to the Cubs for 2023. Nevertheless, you don’t want to see him finishing the year with a major injury. Like I said the other day:
Hopefully nothing bad shows up in any scans, not just because you don’t want to see that for Contreras, but also because it can only help the Cubs if Contreras is still looking like a lock to receive a Qualifying Offer after the season. You don’t want to see anything else disrupt that process, especially after the whole Trade Deadline fiasco raised questions about what Contreras’s market will look like in any case. Can you imagine if something were to happen such that, after all this, Contreras doesn’t even GET a Qualifying Offer from the Cubs? Woof.