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Pence out a week after freak injury
Outfielder goes through glass door, suffers lacerations
KISSIMMEE, FLA. — With lacerations on both hands and knees, Hunter Pence limped into the Astros' clubhouse Tuesday morning and received plenty of grief for crashing through a sliding glass door Monday night.
Pence and his teammates could laugh a bit after the outfielder spent part of the night in the emergency room getting stitches for the injuries suffered at his apartment. On the day of their first full-squad workout, the Astros learned Pence will be out of action for at least one week.
"It's pretty silly to have this kind of freak accident happen," he said. "I didn't really think I would go through a glass door. Normally, it wouldn't shatter. But somehow it shattered, and I was in the middle of a bunch of broken glass. ... I was actually very fortunate because none of the glass was stuck into my wounds."
Pence said he was preparing to go into the hot tub outside his apartment with a friend but decided to go to the bathroom first. At that point, Pence had left the door open. When he headed back, he didn't realize his friend had shut it, Pence said.
"I tried to go up to the bathroom to shower to get all the glass off me, but I was bleeding pretty bad," he said. "I called my parents, so they said to call 911."
Off to the ER
Pence said firemen, emergency personnel and paramedics arrived at his apartment and cleaned up and bandaged his wounds "so I wasn't bleeding all over the place." Then they sent him to the emergency room.
It could have been worse.
"For Hunter, I hate to see something like this happen," Astros owner Drayton McLane said. "It could have been much more serious. He could have cut a tendon or an artery."
Pence said he suffered the injury trying to hop onto a ledge.
"There's like a ledge to go from the outside to inside, and I was kind of hopping to go get up the ledge," Pence said after he was examined by team physician David Lintner. "And the glass door was shut, so I just didn't see the door and just jumped through it."
Pence, 24, hit .322 with 17 home runs, 69 RBIs, 57 runs and 11 stolen bases last year, finishing third in the NL Rookie of the Year balloting.
Because Pence is expected to start in right field and bat sixth behind All-Star Carlos Lee, the week off shouldn't be much of a setback this early in camp.
It left him in stitches
"I'm very happy that it wasn't any worse than it was," manager Cecil Cooper said. "Knowing who Hunter is, I know it wasn't something that he shouldn't be doing. It's just a freak accident. Those things happen.
"Hunter knows how to handle himself. He doesn't have to come out here and prove anything anyway. We look forward to getting him back out here when he's ready to go."
Pence arrived at camp early and began working out Sunday. Now he must wait at least one week before returning to most baseball activities. Moreover, he has a brace on his left knee to keep it stabilized.
"I've got small cuts everywhere, but just mainly my (left) knee had stitches (Monday) night," he said. "It's really not that bad. It's just the fact I can't bend it. They need it to heal together. That's the whole reason I have this huge brace, so I don't bend it.
"They said about a week (before I can practice). ... But as of right now, I can't do very much."
