Oakland A’s place Chad Pinder on disabled list after car accident

The Oakland A’s placed super-sub Chad Pinder on the 10-day disabled list on Sunday, the team announced. To replace him on the roster, infielder Franklin Barreto was called up from Triple-A Nashville. The move is retroactive to Saturday.

Pinder was involved in a car accident, reports Susan Slusser of the S.F. Chronicle. It took place midday Saturday in Denver and he was not the one driving, according to Slusser. Everyone involved was OK in the end, including his fiancee, but Pinder himself needed stitches in his elbow and arm, per Slusser. His official diagnosis is a left elbow laceration, and he doesn’t think it’ll take him too long to recover, via Slusser’s full writeup.

In his place, Barreto comes back for yet another stint in Oakland. This is the fifth time this year that the rookie has been called up to fill in, and it hasn’t even been a week since he last went down. He had time to play In five Triple-A games last week, going 5-for-21 with a homer, a double, 4 BB, and 8 Ks in 25 plate appearances (110 wRC+), which is par for the course for his season — too many strikeouts, but with encouraging walk and power numbers.

Barreto, 2018 MLB: .214/.241/.429, 79 wRC+, 3 HR, 1.7% BB, 41.4% Ks, in 58 PAs

This is a bit different than the normal baseball injury news, as it happened not on the field but rather in a scary real-life situation. Athletics Nation is relieved to hear that Pinder and everyone else are alright, and the baseball considerations can come secondary to that.